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8/19/2003
We have moved! City Comforts Blog is now at this new address:
Please find it there. Posted 8/19/2003 05:48:31 PM by David Sucher
8/18/2003
Uh-oh Smokestacks & Geraniums is an ongoing column in San Diego devoted to, in this case, raising cain by arguing for conversion of golf courses to housing the living:
"Here's an idea: Redevelop all 88 golf courses in San Diego County to provide much-needed housing and to plug budget deficits with the resulting increase in property taxes.Is the author an agent provocateur seeking to bolster support for golf by arguing for something truly bizarre? Posted 8/18/2003 06:40:18 PM by David Sucher Establish a Blog! to Abolish all agricultural subsidies! This post on Abolishing all agricultural subsidies! at Samizdata is fascinating in several regards.
I am definitely and absolutely against subsidies on principle except when they benefit something I favor, in which case I make a principled exception. And I have no well-formed opinion on ag subsidies except that they are bring together a nice combination of defense interests ("sustainability" with guns) and rural traditionalism ("cultural preservation" for the right). But what is most striking about the post is that it is not particularly pushing Samizdata's own intelligent (but probably) fairly predictable opinion on ag sub. The post is about a new weblog established by the Guardian a British paper of leftish perspective. A major left-wing paper has established a weblog (titled kickAAS) to favor a particular political policy. It's as if the Chronicle of San Francisco established a weblog to aid Ah-Nold. I'm not against it --- after all it's just taking one's editorial position and ratcheting up the energy-level --- but I am somewhat astonished. Posted 8/18/2003 04:05:41 PM by David Sucher
8/17/2003
Another myth debunked Excellent article by Mark Hinshaw on how Seattle's Fifth Avenue is flourishing beneath the monorail tracks:
"One of the enduring bits of Seattle folklore is that the monorail ruined Fifth Avenue." Posted 8/17/2003 05:07:35 PM by David Sucher Starchitecture Seduces One Man & His Blog ask this question (I gather in print!):
"Why do the really interesting buildings always start going up just as the market turns?"The answer is astute. My only question is whether the initial question is based on an accurate statement of facts. Posted 8/17/2003 04:49:01 PM by David Sucher Comment on Comment from Transport Blog I am endlessly fascinated by my libertarian friends at superb Transport Blog and their wrestling with mega-scale questions about the proper role of government in the development/management of transportation systems. A common theme is removing restrictions on the use of the road system. My knee-jerk response usually focuses on the central role of eminent domain in creating a state monopoly in the first place. For example, take this Comment offered by Patrick Crozier in the recent Segway thread :
"I have no idea whether the Segway is a good idea or not. But it strikes me as one in a long list of good ideas eg. bikes, roller skates, the C5, which might have been the answer to all sorts of our problems had it only been possible to give them the right sort of road space.Back to our favorite hobby-horse, eh? The potential for a free market in transport. I couldn't agree more. Or less. 1. Why not look at the way things are as the result indeed of a free-market of choices but in a vast time frame and not bound by the use of coin? There's an expression "people get the kind of government they ask for." I believe it. Think of it as people, individuals, corporations, etc making choices over the span of several centuries or even longer. In the USA, at least, state creation/control/limitation of the transport system has emerged out of the desires of the populace. (Perhaps that is difficult for either the extremists --- I don't mean the people at Transport Blog, of course --- of left and right to accept, finding as they do on every hand a conspiracy to enslave the people.) 2. Crozier raises a valid question about the state monopoly over road space. This monopoly is an outgrowth of eminent domain. And the reason we have (and forgive me for repeating myself yet again) eminent domain (compulsory purchase) is because earlier generations, going back hundreds of years, found it impossible to create transport networks without such a mechanism. Our tradition of eminent domain goes back to an era when The King's Highway was to be taken literally. (Though I am an anti-monarchy --- not that what the British do is any of my direct business --- I can also readily concede the evolutionary necessity for kingship and pay it its historical due.) You cannot create a network which crosses the properties of thousands (or at least hundreds) without compulsory purchase; and you cannot leave compulsory purchase in the hands of a private party as that leads to the very abuses which so concern libertarians. So we have a double bind: the bargaining problem, the "hold-out" problem makes it structurally impossible to create a network without eminent domain and yet to delegate eminent domain to private parties is even more horrendous than leaving it with government. I think that any discussions of the government as monopoly over road space must start with those assumptions. *** Perhaps I demonstrate my lack of imagination but I cannot visualize a scenario in which our routes and corridors are transferred to private parties. Does that mean that we might lose efficiency compared to how a private party might manage the space? Perhaps in theory yes a private party could build/manage a street grid (and in Seattle, btw, that consists of roughly 50% of the land area of the city) better than the government does. But that's in theory. I just can't see how it would either evolve or be managed. Indeed, that does mean that lots of good ideas --- more dedicated bike paths -- will be ignored by conventional majoritarian thinking. But the transaction costs of the market itself require that government (or something similar) step in to create common, network systems because The market is incapable of doing it itself. Or else it would have already done so. Posted 8/17/2003 08:15:08 AM by David Sucher "Points on the Line" --- a bit close to the bone I had never heard of the Center for Land Use Interpretation until yesterday (oh the wonders of the web!) and I don't know who they are nor precisely what they are doing but I think that I very much like what I think that they are doing:
"Points on the LineThat last bit I find a bit disturbing, especially as I was hoping to go to the beach next week. Posted 8/17/2003 07:05:58 AM by David Sucher
8/16/2003
A better breed One of my links to the left, ARTSetc, has got to be one of the most intriguing yet confusing sites. I can't figure out how to navigate it, which is most unfortunate as there appears to be a wealth of very good material there. Owner Simon Harvey responds to my pleas ---I was trying to re-find a link there --- by suggesting that "[d]ifficult navigation produces a better breed of surfer: tougher and more agile." Reminds me of Arthur Ransome's summation in Swallows and Amazons of raising children around boats: "Better drowned than duffers."
Posted 8/16/2003 07:53:51 PM by David Sucher The Missing Contextualism Factor Here, thanks to A House at Pooh Corner, is a terrific slide-show titled The Om Factor which calls attention in passing to a question ---"Is there a city beyond the Bilbao Museum?" --- that I have never heard voiced much less answered:
After Frank Gehry's stunning Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, opened to universal acclaim in 1997, midsized cities around the world raced to build their own architectural tourist attractions. The thinking was simple: As long as a new building is enough of a spectacle, visitors will show up in droves. There are plenty of subtleties in Gehry's design—mostly in terms of how carefully it relates to the streets and city surrounding it—but nobody flew to Bilbao for a lesson in contextualism. They went to be amazed." (emphasis added -- DS) Posted 8/16/2003 02:29:13 PM by David Sucher ...private developers would take more precautions... It is always useful to try to understand how other people see the world, much as one may simply shake one's head in wonder, such as this post on what I think is our marvelous (if not big enough) American system of National Parks and Seashores:
"If the government weren't keeping huge chunks of the seashore completely off-limits, I suspect private developers would take more precautions to manage their presence, and tread more lightly upon the shifting sands. The long-term rewards would be worth it. After all, once you've covered the entire OBX with ugly five-story boxes, nobody will want to vacation there anymore.I question almost all the facts as well as the reasoning. Posted 8/16/2003 02:13:17 PM by David Sucher Thanks to 2blowhards More about "Eminent Domain" Some people are against Windmills Rich, Famous Democrats offer a delightful target for mad-dog conservatives when such Democrats act like normal people and fight to protect their own personal interests from the perceived depredations of anything new, such as, in this case windmills as I learn from ivyJews:
"We're always hearing about how Democrats are better for the environment. So they should be overjoyed at the prospect of a project that will 'replace electric power plants and the pollution they cause' with wind power."I have no opinion on this as issue as I simply don't know enough. However I'm curious to see a map showing the location of the "farm" in relation to the value of houses which could be impacted. We are probably not talking about a great number of houses. Of course, they are the houses of Rich People (probably even a few Republicans, I'd wager) but still, there are not so many that they couldn't be offered a bit of the pie...perhaps some shares of stock in the venture at an insider price. After all, this is New England and they know the value of a dollar there. So buy off the opposition. More importantly, I also wonder why some are so phobic about things that look like the windmills near Palm Springs, California, which I happen to think look pretty interesting:  In fact they are quite quiet, especially when compared to the fierce wind which funnels through this little bit of California desert. I found this windmill farm to be an incredibly exciting sensory experience; maybe Ted Kennedy et al could just start looking at this Nantucket Sound project as art. People pay good money to fly to Holland to look at landscapes which prominently include windmills. What's wrong with windmills when they are off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Cape? Cape Wind, the project proponent as we say in bureaucratese, has what looks to be an excellent web site. One page shows how photo simulations are produced and then the photos simulations (obviously self-serving but also perhaps very accurate --- I'd like to hear the opposition) are shown here. Posted 8/16/2003 12:15:40 PM by David Sucher Do the math!© -- Example 2 in a continuing series NPR offers another example this morning of how one can Do the math!© almost every day. Report on the blackout. Fifty billion breathlessly thrown out as cost to rehab/repair/improve the electricity grid. 50 million people offered as number impacted by the failure. Without further political/equitable analysis, it's fair to start with assumption that people impacted should pay. (And it doesn't matter whether they pay through government subsidies to energy producers or pay through their rates: they'll pay.)
Take $56 billion and divide by 50 million people. Yields $1120/person. Assuming that such improvements can legitimately be amortized over ten years (which may be very, very short) that's $9.33/person per month. Yes that's a bump for a very low income family of four: $1.25 per day. (plus interest at very attractive municipal bond rates.) Still doesn't sound all that bad to essentially "rewire the world" outside my house. I'm not trying to act like one of those free-spending liberals inspired by Senator Everett Dirksen who reminded us sagely that "A billion here, a billion there and soon you are talking about real money." Commentators and reporters should put numbers in perspective by creating a relationship to show what those numbers mean to us as individuals and families. Of course there is a danger there: you can boil down anything to "well it's only pennies a day! Posted 8/16/2003 06:48:32 AM by David Sucher Samizdata on "Aesthetics and regulation" Samizdata praises Virginia Postrel's NYT column The Eye of the Beholder.
Samizdata hopes that "As the info-industrial economy advances, the regulatory state will look increasingly out of step and, one hopes, irrelevant and undesirable. Regulation is all about conformity, and while top down conformity might appear to be tolerable in a society that is struggling to make ends meet, one hopes that it will become increasingly intolerable as it becomes more of a barrier to the kinds of pleasure-seeking and self-realization that people are willing to go to great lengths to achieve when they have the means to do so."I don't think so. Postrel correctly points out is that it is difficult for governmental bureaucracies to make aesthetic judgments. What she entirely misses is that the public is demanding that government make those aesthetic judgments. Zoning --- for which political support is absolutely rock-solid --- is now based almost entirely on aesthetic values. "Health and safety" --- the historic legal justifications for zoning --- figure less and less in modern zoning; it's more and more the nebulous "welfare" component which provides legal & political support for zoning's restrictions on private property. Only at the bizarre extremes or through verbal contortions can uniform setbacks, height restrictions, facade treatments, screening, historic preservation in its entirety and many other special rules be linked back to "health and safety." It's only by the fact that we have living, breathing citizens on the Supreme Court --- "Hey we live here, too!" --- that such requirements can be justified by the "police power." (Air and water pollution standards are an entirely different matter, and are based far more on standards which one can track back to legitimate health/safety concerns.) *** In a related discussion (related in that it concerns human preferences and how they manifest themselves), Matthew Yglesias posts lucidly here on David Brooks' article People Like Us and takes Brooks to task for seeming to justify racial segregation. But I think that Yglesias misreads Brooks' (admittedly) somewhat confusing article. What I think Brooks is really saying, for what it's worth, is that in fact we do not want diversity when it comes to the cultural proclivities of our neighbors. We don't care --- and I hope this is what he means --- what our neighbors look like so long as they think like us in terms of aesthetics, how they keep their houses and what sort of car they drive. An example: for most middle-class people, the big fear is neighbors who will park (yes it always come back to parking) their car(s) in the front yard. UPDATE: I reread Brooks' article and he seems somewhat sanguine about the collective individual choices that people make which tend to a degree of self-segregation along racial lines. (I'm not even sure if he is correct about that actually.) But he doesn't even remotely suggest that governmental policy should support segregation; he merely states --- and I think he overstates the ethnic dynamic --- that people like to live amongst people with whom they are, in a word, comfortable. Maybe I am reading into him the most favorable and decent possible interpretation, but my sense is that he would agree that what he is really saying is that lifestyle trumps race. *** So as to an increased concern for aesthetics, yes, Postrel is correct. And Brooks is correct. Rich people and rich societies become more fastidious in their preferences and like things 'just so' and can afford to 'make it just so.' But as to such fastidiousness undermining government regulation, hardly. That's wishful thinking. In fact the concern for aesthetics, for certain kinds of uniformity, will provide merely another excuse for increased governmental regulation. It is the task of realistic conservativism and libertarianism to accept that political reality and to provide less-restrictive means of achieving them. If they continue to deny the underlying impulse to re-form our physical, urban environments, they will continue to linger well outside the corridors of land use power. UPDATE: Postrel's own web site has a comment worthy of response. Bingo! Do I love your piece today! This is the great debate in hi fi. Do we want engineering dweebs to tell us what they think is accurate and what they can measure is the only relevant yardstick for judging sound quality? Or do we let consumers say what they like or don't like without getting hung up over whether it's imaginary or mislabeled or irrelevant? Or even possibly something genuinely important that they can't measure yet?There may indeed be a realistic case for less governmental regulation when it come to individual consumer products such as Hi-Fi. (And I was not aware that there was any a large push for governmental regulation of HiFi in the first place.) But in any case, the idea that "consumers" will take care of everything when it comes to a common good is incorrect. In fact it is structurally impossible because of the ludicrous complexity of the transaction costs involved i.e. there are simply too many unknown and unknowable actors who create our experience of the landscape for anyone of us to negotiate with them to pay a bit more/less to walk/drive by their building if it had this shape rather than that one. The experience of the landscape is not a consumer good like a CD. The landscape (and I wish it were different --- I am only saying this out of sad acknowledgement) is so big and all-encompassing that the approach taken with a consumer good is impossible. For both political (i.e. people want it) and structural reasons (the transaction costs of doing anything else are impossible), there must and will be regulations to govern the aesthetics of the landscape. The only question is their scope. Posted 8/16/2003 03:39:05 AM by David Sucher
8/15/2003
"Affordable Housing" --- How Many Care? This post at Brad DeLong's Webjournal combines so much that interests me.:
"...the way to get more people to live in California is to increase residential density in places near the coast where people really like to live, and to invest more money in schools. The housing price gradient vis-a-vis the rest of the West is ferocious, as is the school quality gradient vis-a-vis the benighted lands east of the Mississippi.There it is: • a new, hitherto unheard of social goal --- growing California's population, • a misplaced goal--- increasing residential density, • something few want --- lower housing prices, • then coastal management (my first real job was in Washington State's "Shoreline management,) • schools (I have strong ideas, based on my own Lousy Ivy League Education), • and last-but-not-least --- out-of-control bureacracy! Luscious. I love it. But why do I shut my ears when I hear calls for "pruning back red tape"? I happen to live with the stuff; I apply for permits and I know as well as anyone that it's a nightmare of a system in Seattle (and I gather it's not a lot better elsewhere, except for places where fewer people want to live so they give out permits without much adult supervision.) Why then are calls like DeLong's above a yawner? Because it won't happen. Or at least it won't happen because people call for it. People like complex bureaucracy when they perceive that it protects them. And as very, very few people ever apply for a permit, they don't really care how long it takes to get a permit. There is simply no political support for pruning back bureaucracy. Especially when the opponents of bureaucracy provide no credible, realistic substitute for "over-regulation." The solution to over-regulation is not "No regulation." Doesn't the right-wing get that? The "affordable housing" issue provides a corollary; great idea but there is no real political support for it. I've posted some remarks --- Affordable Housing --- I gave at a Seattle Chamber of Commerce "Leadership Conference" several years ago. It has a lot of local Seattle content and will bore most people. So only if you are truly interested in affordable housing should you bother to download it, much less read it. But the punch line is simple: Too many individual and interest groups actually gain by steadily increasing housing prices for there to be a natural, ready-to-roll political base for significant action. Even if anyone knew what to do about making housing affordable besides giving people money. Posted 8/15/2003 09:23:46 AM by David Sucher The coffee revolution As the spread of coffee/Starbucks etc etc is a significant part of making a comfortable city, and a very significant cultural phenomenon in itself besides its "communitarian" implications, I will link to several of Michael Jennings' interesting posts on the matter here and here and here and here. Jennings must be a coffee drinker.
Here is the very first Starbucks,  which amusingly-enough is in Seattle's Pike Place Market. (If I were to take a foreign guest on a tour of Seattle, I would show them 3 of our greatest constributions to the world: the first Microsoft HQ, the first Starbucks and --- I kid you not --- the first Costco. And more on Costco later.) As I remember, when this Starbucks first opened it sold only whole beans, which was a cultural advance in itself in the early 1970s. I seem to also remember that coffee drinks were offered initially only as samples. And I say amusingly because I do not believe that Starbucks ---were it not already there --- could establish itself in the Market because it is a national chain. Management (the Pike Place Market PDA) does not want it to become dominated by national and regional chains. As they say here: "The PDA commercial property management department welcomes all applications. Current policy favors applications that exemplify niche or specialty businesses that appeal to local shoppers as much as, if not more than, shoppers from out of town. Please note that at this time the PDA is unlikely to pursue any applications for fast food businesses, jewelry shops, or gift stores that feature souvenirs, tee shirts or sweatshirts...Under current leasing guidelines, space is available for lease for a period of one to three years."I can understand where they are coming from. Shopping centers managers are very practiced in how to create the tight "mix" of tenants. But the Pike Place Market is a Market and it has always struck me as strange that it should be so tightly managed. Oh I am sympathetic to the issues and I also would not want to see the Market dominated by national chains, which it would be were there not rules to prevent it. Yes, I am well-aware of the history and how greedydevelopers (it's one word) would like to destroy it. One of my first chances to vote was in the 1971 election to save it. And yes of course I voted for it. (Take a look at HistoryLink's well-done sketch of the Pike Place Market if it's all new to you.) But, it's called a market and I think it's funny/ironic that it should be managed as if it was the thing it detests the most: a shopping center. Posted 8/15/2003 07:17:07 AM by David Sucher
8/14/2003
An interesting career niche I can't stand the term "Architecture Buff" as it reinforces the idea of architecture as an "art" and what's worse an "art" of creating precious-objects to be set on a shelf, just something else for hobbyists to "collect."
But this guy looks like he has created a very interesting niche for himself in brokering seattle modern mid-century and beyond real estate. Here's an example.  This house is owned (I believe) by the City of Seattle and was acquired by it as part of assembling a "green belt." I was in the house once and it's interesting if you like the 1950s; the site is rather dark, though, as it is tucked into the trees at the westerly base of a big hill, so it gets little morning light. Posted 8/14/2003 08:01:26 AM by David Sucher "Books galore as craze hits city" I had never heard of "bookcrossing" until a few moments ago.
Be careful out there. Posted 8/14/2003 07:51:36 AM by David Sucher
8/13/2003
Do the math!© I read the following quote here:
"August 13, 2003. California is now so bankrupt -- over $34 billion in deficit -- that it's hard to conceive how it may ever climb out of its hole. Seems to me that California, by defaulting on some of its own massive obligations, could singlehandedly turn the bond market from a rout into a train-wreck, perhaps even setting in motion the mythic cascading chain of failures that would melt away the global credit daydream like sunlight beaming on a claque of vampires caught out of their graves by mischance at dawn." Well let's see. $34 billion of debt divided into some 35 (?) million people...(and I used my $2500 better-than-NASA-had-in-1969 computer to do this extremely complex calculation but it is actually just arithmetic and there are even people who can do it in their head by knocking off zeros)...yields some $971 per person. Call it a grand. One thousand dollars ($1000.00) per Californian including babies and the senile. Does not sound like a real crisis deal to me. I think that those Cwazy Californians will be able to pay off their debt. (Unless they want to default like the State of Washington did when it came to paying off nuclear power plants.) *** I have an astute friend who got me to thinking that every time you see a set of figures in print you should Do the math!© The reporters who provide figures ---hard data!--- rarely if ever (Gretchen Morgenstern and Floyd Norris of the NYT are two such rare exceptions, if I remember correctly) Do the math!© And sometimes if one does Do the math!© you reveal some surprising relationships. Such as that the California state debt of $1000 per capita --- not even remotely equal considering inflation to this 1882 Gold Certificate:  (image courtesy Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) --- and does not appear to be such a deep pit out of which to climb. A matter about which to be concerned? Of course. Cause for contemplation of the abyss? I don't think so. *** Do the math!© will be a continuing feature of this Blog. There are examples every week in the media about which to chuckle. Most of them breathlessly present a dramatic number without creating a relationship to show the importance or triviality of the number. And I promise, this Blog's Do the math!© feature will never, ever go beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Because I can't. Even with a computer. Posted 8/13/2003 05:28:14 PM by David Sucher Anti-golf tirade I was shocked, hurt and appalled when I read Murph's anti-golf tirade.
No, actually I was grateful & delighted as it gave me an excuse to open up discussion on one of my favorite topics: environmentally-sound golf. No, that is not an oxymoron. It is a distinct and real possibility, though I make no claims to the current state-of-the-art. Two factoids to consider: 1. The tradition of golf in Scotland (at least in ye olde dayes) allowed the entire family to join in and walk the course with the player. The course was not a sanctified Holy Ground on which only the properly-shirted (must have a collar) could play in splendid isolation. 2. The tradition of golf does not require sopping-wet turf from tee-to-green. In fact, so I understand, the tradition in the British isles is to allow the fairways to brown-up in the summer i.e. they are not irrigated and so no rain, no green. This creates a different game. The fairways may become dry and hard. The ball rolls, rather than plops in place close to where it lands. The fairways are more difficult to play, when compared to 'wet'. It's a more difficult game because the bounce of the ball is less predictable. To my understanding, the central, continuing problem of North American golf courses is run-off of pesticides and various chemicals used in turf management. At base, this problem is "cultural." If golfers did not expect the fairway to be a luscious greensward at all times of years, golf course managers could decrease the amount of irrigation and use of chemicals. As to greens, they are manicured and cultivated very intensely. The grass is so incredibly thin and so incredibly heavily trod that it requires intense management including a great deal of chemistry. (Whether there is a work-around there, I don't know.) As a golfer, I concede that greens must be, well, green. And that means water and chemicals. But greens are also very small. In fact they are a wholly created environment and it is not at all inconceivable -- in fact maybe it's even the current "best-practice" -- that a green would have its own run-off collection-and-treatment system so that it had zero impact on the surrounding water-courses. Golf course design is a luscious subject, at least for those of us who pretend to play golf. Visit golf course architect Tom Doak's site and in particular read his charming book The Anatomy of a Golf Course which contains the following words relevant to the issue of "cultural expectations" and thus the environmental impact of golf: "The golf industry's defense against public concern has been to assert that no changes are necessary, because of the unspoken assumption that the game will suffer if course-maintenance standards are scaled back. Yet, if golfers accepted somewhat lower standards for fairway turf, the chemically maintained area of the course could be decreased by as much as 90 percent....Golf architects must start building green complexes that remain playable even if the standards for fairway turf are relaxed...The sport of golf can and will survive more flexible standards of course maintenance; it might even become stronger. The vanity of eye-appealing green turf is all that has to be sacrificed." Posted 8/13/2003 07:25:21 AM by David Sucher
8/12/2003
Dost thou blog? Terry Teachout is concerned and hopes for a a prettier name for 'blog':
"Terry Teachout asks: I invite your suggestions for a prettier neologism with which to replace 'blog.'Good grief no, please. The very dorkiness of the word blog is its prime advantage; it acts to discourage pretension. No one who has internalized blogging or enjoys being a blogger could possibly come up with a word such as ediary and use it with a straight-face. In fact every weblog ought to have the suffix blog stapled to it, if simply as a reminder to both blogger and bloggee that the blogosphere does not take itself too seriously. (Oh well, except when it struttingly claims to have removed the editor of The New York Times.) The onomatopoeia of the word blog is a down-to-earth reminder of our common origins in the primordial ooze. (Which btw does not preclude any other origins, which of course is the whole magic of the thing.) Posted 8/12/2003 07:51:28 PM by David Sucher "shockitecture" Michael J. Totten on Jim Kunstler's The City in Mind It's great that Michael J. Totten posts on an interview with Jim Kunstler about his book The City in Mind and thinks that the interview is a gem. Any discussion of cities is beneficial, though practical discussion is best. And that's my issue.
Jim opines: "Q - What about strip malls? Those don't shock and appall people.My take: Kunstler had just a moment earlier made a very valid point about the deliterous impact of "shock architecture." ("shockitecture," Brian.) The interviewer has asked a good follow-up about strip malls which do not "shock and appall" but simply bore. But Kunstler does not explain the problem with strip malls. He lifts off into a possibly true but irrelevant notion, (similar to the one made by Jeffries & Scruton in their essay about "The Future is Classical" which I discussed here) which diverts people from practical solutions. Yes "corporate America" is bad and wicked and evil and has no values except GREED! GREED! and more GREED! OK, that must imply the need for a moral revolution in order to have great, even merely better, cities. I say that's confusing the matter. And it is unfortunate that so many very intelligent commentators like Kunstler (as well as Jeffries & Scruton) present the issue in terms of some contemporary version of “moral re-armament.” Both Kunstler and Jeffries & Scruton make the point or at least imply that a well-decorated strip-mall would be a vast improvement. Well I guess it would be an improvement. But it would still be an auto-oriented strip-mall on an auto-oriented arterial i.e it would ignore The Three Rules for creating pedestrian-oriented streets and it would continue to foster an auto-oriented world. “What do you get when you build a strip-mall with columns?” “You get a strip-mall with columns.” (The real problem is that we don’t understand site plan, not the lack of columns or the absence of appreciation for beauty.) I'm glad that Totten is interested in cities; and Kunstler definitely has something to contribute. But it's unfortunate that Totten thinks that a quote like this one below is particularly useful: I disagree, Michael. That's not the root of it at all. While I share Kunstler's contempt for shock architecture I'd like to suggest to him, as well as to Jeffries & Scruton, Knorr, Kimball et al that hectoring, moralizing and intellectualizing are not even remotely germane to re-shaping our cities much less persuasive to the vast bulk of ordinary voters. The idea that somehow it is our infatuation for the cutting edge and for “mystification” (whatever that is and as if the Japanese and Europeans are immune) strikes me as a mis-direction of public attention. It makes the problem one of society's fundamental structure and implies the need for some sort of revolution of left or right. Please leave me out. Let me put it another way. When we discuss the problems of urban form as some sort of moral and structural failing, we set the bar so high that progress is unlikely. The significant achievement of Duany and Plater-Zyberk and all the New Urbanists is that they have to some large but obviously incomplete degree (e.g. Kunstler) avoided the ideological. They have focussed on boringly-mundane specifics: how wide do you make the street? where do you place the building on the lot? etc etc. To introduce ideology, theory, "big ideas" such as Knorr's airy-fairy abstractions of "knowledge, tradition, beauty, and truth" to the discussion is great for the blogosphere but not especially relevant to the landscape. Posted 8/12/2003 03:25:45 PM by David Sucher
8/11/2003
=== Geyser Land === Sure sorry I didn't know about === Geyser Land === until yesterday, when I read about it in the NYT.
"Geyser Land is a site specific installation conceived by video artist Mary Ellen Strom and performance artist/choreographer Ann Carlson. The Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents will produce this new work on August 13 and 14, 2003. Posted 8/11/2003 05:01:40 PM by David Sucher Steal this comment I am absolutely not approving --- tsk! tsk! --- what was done by this Australian living in London. But it is extremely witty.
The spirit of Abbie Hoffman lives on. Posted 8/11/2003 11:42:52 AM by David Sucher Market? or Government-imposed fees? Thanks to the invaluable early-warning system of Transport Blog, I learned about a minor little problem with London's congestion charge which could be called "Too successful for your own good."
Transport Blog links to this London Telegraph opinion on congestion charges: "But more importantly, the scheme can't fund itself. It has an inbuilt contradiction. The more people it deters from driving, the less money it raises."The problem --- no, it's not a problem at all, it's just a basic reality of human perception --- is that there is such a thing as "elasticity of demand." Raise the price, people _may_ purchase less -- in fact they usually do. Lower the price and they _may_ purchase more. (One hopes.) The essential business skill is in adjusting the price to keep demand where you want it...wherever you've decided is optimum. Pretty basic. But it seems as if someone in London may have ignored this little fact of human behavior. The problem wih the London congestion charge as now arranged seems to be that the authorities may not have understood that they would have to decide if they are charging: 1. as a business --- to raise money or 2. as a government --- to manage a public good (in this case to decrease congestion to what one presumes was some pre-determined optimum level) You have to be clear on which is the higher priority or else you won't be clear on how or when or if to adjust your charges. And until you are clear, you won't have a market but only a government fee system. Posted 8/11/2003 06:47:29 AM by David Sucher
8/10/2003
The Light at the End of the Tunnel I never really understood the expression The Light at the End of the Tunnel until today when I rode my bike through the 2.25 mile long, former-railroad Snoqualmie Tunnel with my Dogscooter buddies as I promised I would here and I actually experienced, big time, The Light at the End of the Tunnel.
We're only about 200 yards from the western exit in the photo below. When we entered the tunnel, the end was so far away that we could not see it at all, not even a speck of light. It was total pitch black. (The trail takes a quick turn within a hundred yards of the easterly entrance so the darkness is sudden and complete.) And when the speck of light did appear, it was simply that: a tiny brilliance which I initially mistook for a distant signal light or perhaps the headlamp of an far-approaching cyclist. It took us 20 minutes to ride through the Tunnel. We went ahead of the dogs so we could warn any horsepeople to stand clear at the far end: dog-scooters on the trail!  Being unable to see the sides of the tunnel is very disconcerting; it is hard to balance on a bike when riding in pitch black. UPDATE: Now I also have a better insight into the expression Tunnel vision. Posted 8/10/2003 04:42:24 PM by David Sucher The True Test Harriet Festing at Project for Public Spaces discusses a cultural variable of the first order: Kissing in Public
"But kissing is the true sign of liberation. Lovers like to do things prominently, in a mood of egalitarian bliss, when the sun is warm and the whole world is watching... Posted 8/10/2003 07:48:26 AM by David Sucher
8/9/2003
A note on the shirt with the logo No, that one is not for sale. It's starting to fray.
The logo was created for a party. About a dozen years ago...1990?...a group of us, people who had been close friends in the late '60s and early '70s had a reunion and we had the logo silk-screened on t-shirts for the event. People came from far away; it was a memorable party. The logo shown here  is embroidered on a knit collared shirt I had made when I was on a golf jag a few years ago. Most golf courses with any pretension to tradition have a dress code (for example) and require a shirt with a collar (tucked-in the trousers, no less)--- No Sir, even an official T-shirt from the Metallica concert is not 'regulation'. But I knew that a collared shirt with a Committee for Respect for the Sixties logo would be just the ticket for mixing-in at the 19th hole. All humor aside, and much as I laugh, there really is something grating about playing golf with a guy in a ratty t-shirt; it's really disgusting. So I apologize to all and any past playing partners. Posted 8/09/2003 05:57:10 PM by David Sucher Which 1960s? Perhaps I existed in a different 1960s --- one totally of my own hazy imagination --- than did Michael at 2blowhards.com, and perhaps wearing a different shirt today? --- here's the logo on the shirt I was wearing at the very moment I read Michael's post (and you'll have to pry it from me) ---
--- because I cannot quite follow his suggestion that Co-op City is a manifestation of the spirit of the '60s. It is to my mind pure 1950s Eisenhower/Robert Moses urban renewal and has nothing whatsoever to do with '67, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, the Moosewood Cookbook or the Whole Earth Catalog. He writes here: I have a theory -- I'm not sure it's defensible, but it's mine and it gives me pleasure -- that politics in America during the last 35ish years boils down to this: that everything is a reaction to the '60s. There's been nothing new, nothing really different. Just a bunch of reactions. The problem is that the programs of the '60s went too far; no, the problem is they didn't go far enough. The solution is they need to be reformed; no, the solution is they need to be ditched entirely. And meanwhile the bills for what was put in place during the '60s continue to pile up ...Michael's theory is excellent --- a great deal of our current political conversation is indeed a debate about the 1960s --- and I happen to agree with his political analysis. But his example of Co-op City does not illustrate it. Co-op City may have been built in 1968, but it grew out of a top-down statist approach which also gave us city-destroying urban freeways. I don't think that Co-op City and Esalen (to choose the real 1960s cliche) have much in common at all. Great theory, questionable example. Now if you want to debate the 1930s... UPDATE: At openDemocracy Todd Gitlin discusses The Clinton legacy and America and in a different way agrees with Michael Blowhard: "For the scorched-earth right, Bill Clinton was, if not the literal Antichrist, a close approximation: the perjurious, adulterous doper Slick Willie, admitted draft dodger and reputedly serial womaniser who had opposed the Vietnam war, visited Moscow, and married a card-carrying feminist who only belatedly took his name and was the first professional woman to take up First Ladyship in the White House. Clinton was, in their eyes, the 1960s incarnate..."the 1960s incarnate Yes, for all his flaws, and there were many, I'd vote for him again. Posted 8/09/2003 05:26:15 PM by David Sucher "...a solution looking for a problem"? Brian blogs about the Segway personal transporter and wonders if it is a "...a solution looking for a problem."
By coincidence I tried a Segway a few days ago. Fun but no cigar; I'd rather bike if the weather is nice etc. and so I think he's right in terms of mass recreational or commuting use. It's too slow and exposed (to traffic and weather) and not fun enough for well, "fun," use. But apparently the Segway may have a narrow but perhaps profitable application with municipal/utility meter-readers etc etc.and who are constantly stopping-and-starting. Seattle has conducted an experiment with some success. Segway scooters are a big hit with the city: "The city of Seattle's six-month Segway experiment went so well that the self-balancing scooters will likely become permanent.More info here too. Posted 8/09/2003 03:29:11 PM by David Sucher Hood Canal Bridge Perhaps today is your day to treat yourself to owning your Very Own Bridge:
"This bridge is built on 4 pontoon sections and can easily be towed to any location in the Pacific Ocean or adjoining waters. It has it's own control console, electric switch board, concrete railings, curbs and street lighting and with the addition of a generator ($negotiable) it would become an independantly functioning unit."  Posted 8/09/2003 09:17:48 AM by David Sucher Cities & Faith This Blog received much-appreciated notice from Gideon Strauss a few days. His post here also had high praise for a book explicitly linking New Urbanism to Christianity, (which for me, implicitly and presumptively, means to all faith, though of course that's just middle-of-the-road conjecture.) As I am agnostic on only one of these matters, I am now also curious.
Gideon writes: "The second is a new book by Eric Jacobsen (perhaps still a pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Missoula, Montana?), Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. At about the same time I read it reviewed in Books & Culture** and the sadly defunct Re:generation (yes, I am very far behind in my magazine reading!), and saw it mentioned by Dave Hegeman. I cannot wait to read this book." (Don't miss links in original--DS)From the reviews I have read, I am also intrigued, and mostly by the author's particularity in focusing the reader from the very title of the book on such a specific detail: sidewalks, which he uses, I gather, as a metonym for the much larger concept of community. Apparently there is significant interest in New Urbanism in the Christian community. The common denominator appears to be the perceived lack of community in modern American life. Gideon's site linked, for example, to several other sites such as The Native Tourist and Christianity Today Magazine. The review in Christianity Today had this insight: Jacobsen anticipates the question of why Christians should care about sidewalks when we're supposed to worry about salvation. To begin with, the characteristics of our urban environments determine how we are able to spread the gospel; it's easier to reach out to pedestrians in public places than to car-bound citizens cruising from their gated community to a Costco. Posted 8/09/2003 06:36:22 AM by David Sucher
8/8/2003
"Supporting the book" In relation to the eBook in particular, though it should have been a more global conjecture, I hypothesized that the next step in publishing "books" (in quotes as the definition of a "book" is about to change) would be the practice of "supporting the book."
I commented here: "I believe that the ebook can be a far superior product--- not simply a 'complete' physical object but an ongoing process --- with easy updates by the author, questions, clarifications, URL links to sources etc. etc. In the course of my own work I have constantly thought 'Oh gee I'd like to put a link in here to that site so that readers can get further info' but of course you can't with a paper book."Books are a form of software. Computer software is generally "supported" --- which means simply that there is someone around to whom the user can address questions, make suggestions etc. With computer software, such "support" typically involves creating new, improved versions of the product etc. The web (and particularly the very easy-to-use and flexible medium of the blog) will allow authors to support their book, at least non-fiction books. The constantly-revised text for law school would be a prime example of a work which could benefit from constant updates by and interaction with its author. I have envisioned that this City Comforts Blog and the forthcoming City Comforts Book might function in this fashion: the blog supporting the book and new and better editions stimulated by questions, comments and general interaction with other bloggers, readers etc etc. But I just stumbled across a book which is already being supported and it couldn't come from a more eminent source:Edward Tufte, who has an Ask E.T. forum which appears to function as an ongoing adjunct to his books. It's great; take a look. I think it's cutting edge for the publishing industry. If you know of other such books which are "supported" in real time, please let me know. Posted 8/08/2003 03:34:38 PM by David Sucher Funny but true. One can buy used first edition copies of City Comforts at Amazon here. (Selling "used" as well as "new" is a pretty cool aspect of Amazon, I think). But the prices there make my eyes pop and a smile come to my face.
It's flattering to see such prices, implausible as they may be. But I'd wait and buy the second edition. It's a better book and you can buy a whole bunch for $180, enough to share with your local elected officials. 
Posted 8/08/2003 06:38:24 AM by David Sucher
8/6/2003
A New (Old) Book for Sale Here is A New (Old) Book for Sale. I recommend it without reservation. (No, this book is not City Comforts.)
Posted 8/06/2003 07:45:46 AM by David Sucher Coach Clinton Don't be alarmed, this post is but a momentary lapse and probably not-to-be-repeated comment on American electoral politics.
*** The unremarked 800 pound gorilla in the smoke-filled Democratic back-room is Bill Clinton. I am very glad that he is there. At least I hope he is there. And I hope that there is such a room. The big questions for me are 1. Who will Clinton endorse as the Democratic nominee? and, far more importantly, 2. When will Clinton endorse him? 3. How can Clinton do it without appearing to do so? As to #1: While I am definitely an ABB Democrat (Anybody But Bush) I do not share the unfortunately prevailing opinion among my friends that Bush is "scary" and they "hate" him. Actually, I rather like George Bush. I think he would be a good companion on the golf course or a camping trip. I just don't agree with virtually any of his policy positions (oh, there are some exceptions) and I'd prefer that he follow his dad as a one-term president. So I say "ABB." Which means I don't care who the Democrats nominate so long as he can win. (Btw, I am not expecting an ABB Democrat to be a whole lot better than the Republicans; but I am grateful for small things.) As to #2: Within reason, the sooner the better, I say. Certainly well before the Democratic convention. Winning means money and composure. The Democrats need to coalesce around one person long before the Democratic convention. They cannot afford to waste the money or energy on an internecine struggle. And then offer up an exhausted nominee to a "Presidential" GW Bush. As to #3: Who can engineer such an agreement? The only person is Bill Clinton. I hope he steps up and risks his own prestige and does it. But how? Clinton is essentially very conservative and will not endanger (he has finally I hope learned the cost of impetuous behavior) his own prestige or Hillary's. Moreover, he is still the hot handle of a skillet: one wants to be very careful about grabbing it; like Bush, he is a very polarizing figure. So Bill has to draw upon all his political and interpersonal skills to forge a Democratic coalition and yet do so without appearing to have been instrumental. Yes, that takes enormous political skill. But bear in mind, Clinton did climb his way twice to the very top of the American greasy pole and is said by people who know far more than I to be one of the great political strategists of this era. Clinton will have to persuade the Democratic candidates to coalesce around one of their number. That will require the candidates to acknowledge that selflessness & selfishness can go together: "Guys, it is better to be part of a winning team than a lone failed nominee." "Thanks, Coach." "And all you guys, just remember, ABB." *** Moreover, a big moreover, such a display of selflessness and teamwork by Democratic politicians would itself be politically attractive. What Americans would like to see is a Democratic party which can not only get elected but actually administer the country through enough self-denial so as to enable it to move effectively and forcefully in the same direction. Posted 8/06/2003 07:39:25 AM by David Sucher
8/5/2003
Road Privatization's Logical Conclusion Fascinating post from Murph at commonmonkeyflower about Road Privatization's Logical Conclusion which logical conclusion to me as well is that not everything done in the past --- such as public streets and "rights-of-way" --- was dumb and can be improved by "privatizing." Conservatives and libertarians might be well-advised to beat a strategic retreat on road privatization. Markets are a great tool for communicating human values; but one has to fit the tool to the job.
Posted 8/05/2003 09:10:02 AM by David Sucher What's a Vancouver Island Marmot? We care about cities.
But we also care about the The Vancouver Island Marmot. Posted 8/05/2003 09:05:18 AM by David Sucher Friendly Campus Housing Good discussion here about the dynamics of sociability in campus housing:
"What are the lessons to be drawn from this?....First, the 'layout and operations' of a house are extremely important to the community. Things like nice porches, conveniently located common areas, and the like are among the fundamental building blocks of a strong community (Jane Jacobs would agree, I am sure.) I wonder sometimes if the 'strongest' houses, such as Mich, Minnies, Owen, Black Elk, Lester, and Debs simply have very good layouts, and houses like Nakamura, Stevens, and Luther do not. Often, when I suggest this possibility, people seem kind of incredulous - they don't seem to want to believe that 'warm and fuzzy' stuff like community can arise from concrete things like floor plans.""...they don't seem to want to believe that 'warm and fuzzy' stuff like community can arise from concrete things like floor plans." Fascinating remark. Posted 8/05/2003 08:48:28 AM by David Sucher
8/4/2003
Los Angeles Confidential Magazine--Bilbao Redux Once you start looking, those pesky starchitects are everywhere:
"Gehry is at the head of a new class of architects whose unique design skills are much in demand for their ability to immediately add flavor to a city. Gehry's Guggenheim started this trend, and now other "starchitects," as they are called, have become household names. Impressive, especially when you consider that architecture is not the normal road to stardom, especially in LA. Posted 8/04/2003 03:37:58 PM by David Sucher BAUHAUS in Tel Aviv & Pedestrian-Oriented Buildings It makes sense, once one thinks about it, that there should be a lot of BAUHAUS in Tel Aviv
The city of Tel Aviv is literally an open museum of the International Style in architecture.In light of the huge amount of very bad so-called Modernist architecture which ignores and damages the street, consider in particular the buildings shown in images # 2, 4, 8, 12, 13, and 18 on the link. They appear to be exemplary urban buildings. I suggest that these photos show, if it is not already logically obvious, that one does not need "Traditional" architecture to create a good urban, pedestrian-oriented streetscape. Or, in other words, site plan trumps architecture. Posted 8/04/2003 11:21:16 AM by David Sucher Finally some intelligent thinking on congestion Traffic at a Crawl? Some Are Saying That's Good News :
"Some cutting-edge transportation experts have startling news: Traffic congestion isn't entirely a bad thing. In fact, it's a good sign. Posted 8/04/2003 10:40:52 AM by David Sucher The term "starchitecture" In praising architect Santiago Calatrava, BRIAN's Culture Blog here offers an off-hand compliment: "This man would appear to be what David Sucher calls a starchitect. Clever word. Did you think of it David?"
I started to comment there but then realized I was writing a new post. *** I wish I could make the claim to have first used "starchitecture" but alas, there are Google cites for the word which indicate recent spontaneous and simultaneous generation, and I would not rule it out that I first read the word on someone else's site. For example: here: "Consider the notion of style that permeates the current 'starchitecture' culture. Just as fans can get worked up over the idea of celebrity, so there is a tendency among some clients to get unreasonably enamored of a particular architect's 'signature style.' Such a design might address immediate needs vis-a-vis fundraising or publicity, but its ultimate result can be a building ill-suited both to place and purpose."or here: "Gehry is one of a handful of prominent architects, such as Rem Koolhaas and Richard Meier, who have helped architecture become the dominant cultural icon of today's urban landscapes, Crow says.Interesting: "...appreciate them long before they ever encounter them in person, if they ever do." Taking mass-media impact on our perception of the built environment from an extremely academic (I am trying to keep up the tone of this blog) is this book: Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media: "Through a series of close readings of two major figures of the modern movement, Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, Beatriz Colomina argues that architecture only becomes modern in its engagement with the mass media, and that in so doing it radically displaces the traditional sense of space and subjectivity. Privacy and Publicity boldly questions certain ideological assumptions underlying the received view of modern architecture and reconsiders the methodology of architectural criticism itself. Where conventional criticism portrays modern architecture as a high artistic practice in opposition to mass culture, Colomina sees the emerging systems of communication that have come to define twentieth-century culture -- the mass media -- as the true site within which modern architecture was produced. She considers architectural discourse as the intersection of a number of systems of representation such as drawings, models, photographs, books, films, and advertisements. This does not mean abandoning the architectural object, the building, but rather looking at it in a different way. The building is understood here in the same way as all the media that frame it, as a mechanism of representation in its own right. With modernity, the site of architectural production literally moved from the street into photographs, films, publications, and exhibitions -- a displacement that presupposes a new sense of space, one defined by images rather than walls. This age of publicity corresponds to a transformation in the status of the private, Colomina argues; modernity is actually the publicity of the private. Modern architecture renegotiates the traditional relationship between public and private in a way that profoundly alters the experience of space. In a fascinating intellectual journey, Colomina tracks this shift through the modern incarnations of the archive, the city, fashion, war, sexuality, advertising, the window, and the museum, finally concentrating on the domestic interior that constructs the modern subject it appears merely to house."(italics added)Hmmm. So one aspect is that the building doesn't exist until we are told about it, until it is validated by media, by an external source? We don't trust ourselves to see and feel and conclude. Hmmm. I am afraid that I think there is some truth to that and it indicates one of the reasons "starchitecure" and the respect for critical authority ---as we see it discuss the built environment --- so troubles me. Posted 8/04/2003 07:41:07 AM by David Sucher No Parking I, too, am concerned about being boring.
But I've also come to realize that, while there is room to change at the margins, one is what one is. And I am a creature who parks, even before he drives.  To anyone who has grown up in a purely rural or suburban area, the importance of parking --- there being no shortage of spaces --- may be strange. But imagine the issues if one lives in a very dense neighborhood in NYC or perhaps London, Paris or Tokyo. There are two traps: 1. One has a parking spot, but one does not want to drive because one will lose the parking spot. And the better the parking spot, the less inclined to drive. So why have a car? 2. The other trap is driving around looking for a parking spot; it's like flying an airplane looking for the landing strip: the search grows wearying after a time. I would add terrifying except for due respect to pilots. Posted 8/04/2003 04:10:58 AM by David Sucher
8/3/2003
Great Salt Lake shrinks, "Spiral Jetty" reappears Radio show about Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" --- reported deftly by Eric Fredericksen of Seattle --- is available at Studio 360 and well-worth hearing. And seeing as the site is open to the public. Salt Lake is not that far from Seattle, and I like Salt Lake City a lot; I think it is worth a trip.
 (this photo source here) And more images here. Posted 8/03/2003 09:59:23 PM by David Sucher The Work of Edward Tufte inspired me From a graphics perspective, The Work of Edward Tufte and Graphics Press is one of the prettiest sites on the web. Tufte's work has received rave and after rave, and from people I respect. But I have bought and read two of Tufte's books (the first two) and I am not quite sure what the excitement is all about. Nothing he said struck me as particularly unusual or incisive. (Tell me I am wrong.)
Nonetheless it must have been inspiring. After reading one of his books, I designed the following ferry schedule, based on a clock face (not the most expressive design in this manifestation, I'm afraid) but here it is:  The reverse side shows the other leg of the trip, of course. (If you are curious, I printed up a bunch of the schedules as a courtesy to a tenant to give to their customers.) UPDATE: All of a sudden I find a reference to Edward Tufte (and Stewart Brand,btw) at Gideon Strauss. Posted 8/03/2003 07:14:37 PM by David Sucher Heather MacDonald on Reporters I have no idea who Heather MacDonald is but I like her remarks here:
"Luke: 'What have you learned about dealing with reporters?'She's basically right but I think that the larger reason one shouldn't trust them is that the reporter and the interviewee have an inherent conflict of interest. The interviewee wants to puff and get his/her message out; the reporter wants to create a piece which will sell and advance his/her career. Presenting the person interviewed in an accurate light is incidental. Posted 8/03/2003 06:50:52 PM by David Sucher
8/2/2003
Marina City 's Circular Parking Garage As a result of yet more interesting discussion on car parks at Brian's Culture Blog, I am posting a link to background on Bertram Goldberg's columnar Marina City in Chicago, Illinois.
"Marina City, in 1959, is a thirty-six-million- dollar project built on only three acres of land in the heart of Chicago's Loop. A dramatic landmark in the Chicago skyline, it culminated thirty years of thought and development for Goldberg. Each of the twin, sixty-story towers had four hundred and fifty apartments in its upper two-thirds, with the lower third a continuous parking ramp that spirals upwards, accommodating four hundred and fifty automobiles. Since the residential level starts at the twenty-first story, magnificent views of the city are enjoyed from every apartment."And just in case anyone thinks this parking stuff is getting out hand, you have to understand that I am not only a deeply-committed urbanist (no humor or sarcasm here) but also a "car guy." I like cars. Maybe I even love them and the personal autonomy they provide me. So much of my concern as an urbanist is , recognizing that I am not alone in actually liking cars and driving, is how do we actually accommodate cars gracefully. I have written previously on this blog that some conservatives/libertarians are "in denial" about the need and even desirability of land use regulation. In parallel, I believe that quite a few liberal urbanists are in denial about the "individual vehicle," the car. Just a little personal secret, btw. When I graduated from Columbia, one of the reasons I left New York (for graduate school in lower density Seattle) was that I realized that it would be very difficult for a young graduate to be able to afford parking a car if I stayed in New York. Call it shallow, adolescent, unsustainable...call it whatever you like, but call it the truth. So parking was, is and will always be a big deal for me. Imagine my surprise when I started to study cities and development and I discovered that in real fact, the way things actually happen in the real world, the design process for a building (in North America anyway) starts with the quantity and location of parking. So this parking garage stuff is not just some silly issue...not silly if you care about cities, anyway. Posted 8/02/2003 06:16:19 PM by David Sucher Two Cultures Norman Geras expresses what are very much my own sentiments.
I seem now to inhabit two more or less disconnected worlds. With most of the people I know, my impression is that they're only dimly aware of the blogosphere, if they're aware of it at all. 'What's a blog?' has been a common reaction when I've mentioned the subject. But for those already in it - or maybe it's only for relative newcomers like myself - it's a passion. If I don't get to do my daily tour for any reason, I start to get jumpy. It's like a day without music. This is not a matter, or not quite a matter, of blogito ergo sum - which would be a sorry state to have come to, indeed. But cogito ergo blog just about gets it. Posted 8/02/2003 08:17:48 AM by David Sucher
8/1/2003
The myth of the "decent architect" Beware: this post may be long & boring unless you are into parking. Or maybe even if you are into parking.
*** Brian Micklethwait wrote a very interesting post on parking garages at Samizdata.net titled A new ye olde car park. Michael Jennings commented that such structures (parking garages, "car parks" --- or "La Parque de Car" in elegant neighborhoods?) might follow the path of airports and be taken up as a design challenge by "decent architects." But he foresees one problem. Will "decent architects" deign to take part?: "Until about 15 years ago, airports were considered an architectural and design disaster area that nobody ever said a kind word about, but since then the very best architects have started designing terminals and they seem to be considered almost prestige projects. (The three that come immediately to mind are Norman Foster's terminal at Stansted here in London and his much bigger one at Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, and also Renzo Piano's Kansai airport terminal in Osaka.) There has definitely been a transformation there, as a class of building seen as functional and inherently ugly is no longer necessarily seen that way...Car parks could go the same way. However, the advantage of airport terminals are that they are very big, and lots of people see them. Car parks are inherently much smaller, and as a consequence it is going to be hard to get decent architects interested in them, except as part of a larger project. (Emphasis added -- DS)Of course I am not sure what Jennings means by "decent architect" but I assume (perhaps incorrectly, though someone surely will have this view) that "decent architect" means a famous, illustrious, glamorous starchitect. I have some thoughts. 1. Parking garages are not penny-ante structures. Figure US$8500/space as a bare minimum under ideal conditions --- flat site, no soil problems, everything at grade, efficient owner (at making decisions) and smart contractor. Proforma double that (at least) for an in-city project done by the public. Assume a 100 cars. That's a $1.7 million ---probably $2 million project. Maybe more. Hardly big but there is enough juice there for competent design. 2. There is not much to design. The layouts and turning angles and so forth are very much of a formula so the garage itself is simple in layout. Structural engineers probably have as much work to do as architects. 3. There are not a lot of rules or techniques by which to hide (or better yet, integrate) the garage into the streetscape i.e. you don't need a "world class architect" (how that phrase makes me barf) to create an exemplary parking garage. And the rule, as I see it, is the simple one of "wrapping" the garage with other uses. In the same set of comments, Patrick Crozier suggests such a rule: But wouldn't it be better if you couldn't see them at all? One of the things that struck me about many central Tokyo stations is that you can't see them from outside - they are encased in modern, multi-storey buildings. The station is there somewhere in the middle. Why not the same for car parks?Let me turn to an essay which, while deeply flawed (my comments on it here) in that it fails to separate "architecture" from "site plan," does offer words of enormous merit and wisdom concerning the imperative for rules, and rules which can be simple enough to be understood by even the simplest real estate developer, city planner and architect...the sort of rule which Crozier suggests. The essay is by Sophie Jeffreys and Roger Scruton at openDemocracy and is titled The future is classical. They state that (and you should read the whole essay, btw) "[t]he classical tradition has another, more political, merit. Unlike modernism, it has provided examples, rules and precedents that were equally the starting point for the highest aesthetic endeavours and for ordinary and unassuming buildings. It was a tradition available to everyone, regardless of talent. It proved capable of creating a spontaneous urban harmony incorporating the humblest residences and the grandest public buildings side by side."Hence repeatability and rule-guidedness are vital architectural resources....Style must be so defined that anyone, however uninspired, can make good use of it..." Very wise words. In the design problem at hand, "wrapping" a parking garage with other uses, either merely at the sidewalk level or all the way up, is the simple and effective rule which literally "civilizes" car parks and makes them a part of a pedestrian-oriented street. No amount of "innovative" design from a Gehry, Koolhaas or Libeskind can help a parking structure unless the architect --- whomever it is --- is directed to start from the sidewalk. *** One doesn't need the Ayan Rand "architect as mythic hero" to design a good parking garage; you just need someone who knows the rules of wrapping. Posted 8/01/2003 05:11:56 AM by David Sucher Copyright © 2003 David Sucher
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