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In Hard Times, Public Places are More Important Than Ever
Jay Walljasper, WorldChanging
… Places that serve everyone in the community—parks, libraries, public buildings, markets, plazas, playgrounds, sidewalks and other hang outs—are more important than ever, especially for those who are struggling to get by on shrinking or low incomes. Less money to spend on entertainment and restaurants should not mean that many folks have no place to go, leaving them confined to their houses and apartments.
The last economic crisis of this magnitude—the Great Depression of the 1930s—led to a new appreciation for public places. The recovery programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal built or restored parks, trails and recreational facilities all over the country. The American public is still reaping the benefits of these farsighted accomplishments.
It makes perfect sense to do this again on an even larger scale, with federal, state, municipal, philanthropic and community investment in creating wonderful places in every town where people can rub shoulders with one another and enjoy themselves. After decades where peoples’ lives have become more privatized, this would spark a welcome transformation of American life.
But a glance at the news in any American town or state can instill fears for fate of public spaces.
(13 March 2009)
Kunstler on South Africa
James Howard Kunstler, blog
While evermore appalling shenanigans within the AIG corporation preoccupied the US media last week, I made a side trip to the Republic of South Africa.
… I was in Johannesburg to give some talks at the invitation of an architecture firm, Osmand Lange, who had designed an outstanding New Urbanist project of some 35 acres in the otherwise Los Angeles-style illegible suburban sprawl north of the old central business district. The project, called Melrose Arch, was an ensemble of five-story buildings in a set of mixed-use, dense blocks rich with good public space — a rare thing in this otherwise ultra-fortified security state of gated estate houses, malls, business “parks,” and freeways.
In fact, in the car coming off the very long flight from North America, with what felt like a brain-pan full of screaming weevils produced by jet-lag, I kept on wondering if I had somehow landed in LA by mistake, so similar was the palm-studded terrain and most of the objects deployed on it. After a day or so of brain rehab, the differences became more apparent.
… Every day the denizens of Soweto fan out northward to work by means of taxi-cab. A gigantic system of metered cabs and mini-vans, many in desperate disrepair, driven with infamous recklessness, serves the metro area’s poorest citizens. A colossal taxi “park” (parking lot in our lingo) near the freeway entrance to Soweto’s closest-in township dispatches all these vehicles to another massive taxi park in downtown Joburg, with van or taxi connections at each end to take commuters further. This exercise consumes around four hours of misery every day, in traffic that almost always turns Joburg’s freeways into yet another a taxi park twice a day. Returning to Soweto after a day’s work, some people have to make two or three additional taxi connections to get home through the sprawling townships. Many cannot afford this and the shoulders of the connector highways off the freeway in Soweto were filled in late afternoon with streams of people heading home on foot, some burdened with bundles, some carrying things on their heads.
The sheer monetary expense of doing all this must be out of this world for people with not much to begin with. Somehow, the insanity of it has been established as “normal,” and there were few signs that the government — now black-majority, after all — was planning to rectify the situation.
… The combination of the fortification mentality with compulsory motoring has left Johannesburg with a conspicuous scarcity of shared civic space. It’s hard to beat the USA for this, but South Africa has managed to. The architects and developers who designed the Melrose Arch project tried to supply something that was otherwise non-existent in the country and they did a very good job. All the classes of the various races were present there — whites, blacks, and Asians — sitting in the outdoor cafes, often at mixed tables, while the virtually all-black service class puttered and watched in the background. The nicely-scaled main square felt like the only tranquil, open, safe public gathering place in the entire metroplex. The health club down the street where I dropped in three times in a week reflected the mix of races, too, as did the offices and business establishments.
(16 March 2009)
Robert Rapier’s Year Without a Car
Robert Rapier, The Oil Drum: Campfire
On March 1, 2008 I sold my Nissan Micra in Aberdeen, Scotland and hopped a plane to Amsterdam to take up a new position. I have not owned a car since that time. A while back a TOD reader asked what that experience has been like, and suggested I write a story on it. So here it is.
While in Europe
It is really a tale of two continents. In large parts of Europe, one can get along reasonably well without a car. In the past year, I have worked at my company’s Accoya factory in the Netherlands most of the time. I fly in to Amsterdam, and there is a train station right in the airport. I catch a direct, 1 hour and 15 minute train to the Arnhem Central Train Station. From there, it’s a 15-minute cab ride to my apartment.
I secured an apartment that is only about half a mile from work, and I adopted the common Dutch habit of riding my bike to work. I certainly don’t feel safe all of the time with cars whizzing past me, and at times it has been an inconvenience, but the vast majority of the time the bike suits me just fine. (If you want to argue that my international flights more than offset any fuel savings from biking to work, you won’t get any argument from me. But in this economy, you do what you have to).
As for the inconvenience, if I want to go out to eat, I am around a mile from the nearest restaurant. When visitors come over to the factory to visit, I often find myself riding the bike in the dark, to a restaurant that may be 3 miles from my apartment. That may seem like a piece of cake, but I have done it in the snow, in freezing rain, and with a fierce wind in my face. It would certainly be more convenient to hop in a car and go.
The worst inconvenience to date was when I had a bad cold, and my secretary made me a doctor’s appointment on short notice. I hopped on my bike and rode a mile and a half in a freezing downpour. I could have probably bothered someone to take me, but I really try to be as low-maintenance as possible.
… Meanwhile, Back in Texas
But as I said, it is a tale of two continents. When I fly back to Texas, it is hard to do without a car. I fly into the airport, and the first thing I have to do is catch a cab for the 35-mile drive to my house.
I bought a house 25 miles from my Dallas office, because 1). I hate cities, so I chose a house in the country; 2). I knew I wasn’t going to have to spend that much time in the office. 3). Because the housing bubble was imploding, I got a builder’s foreclosure for about half the appraised price. If I had to make that commute every day, I would have sucked it up and bought a house closer to the office, preferably close to some kind of public transportation. From where I live, public transportation isn’t an option, so I rent a compact car when I have to be in the office, or borrow my wife’s car if the kids are out of school.
How long can I keep this up? To be honest, I never thought I could keep it up for over a year.
(18 March 2009)
