Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Wondering why we don't bother building community amenities anymore?

I'm long overdue in noting the unfortunate end of the Franklin Cultural Center board's efforts to fund and build an arts center here. The organization was chaired by Don Dorson (read his letter after the jump). So much for local community amenities.

I also just started reading a newly published book called THE CUL-DE-SAC SYNDROME: TURNING AROUND THE UNSUSTAINABLE AMERICAN DREAM. And there's Franklin - a favorite for authors and journalists needing an object lesson in sprawl economics -  on page 53:

High-growth areas nearly always translate into higher property taxes. One study in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the tax burden is among the highest in the United States, showed that while the county's population grew 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, total property taxes soared 3.57 times faster than the population. Part of the reason is that developers rarely pay the long-term costs of building communities. Impact fees are often minimal.

Once subdivisions are built, builders are off the hook to fund schools parks, roads, and other infrastructure. In fact, the disparity between what a single-family home costs taxpayers and what developers pay is huge. In Franklin, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee, each new home cost taxpayers more than $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 (it was considerably more by 2008). The developer's contribution: $813 per home. Impact fees vary from locale to locale, but they never cover the full cost of development.

Conservatives and Mass Transit: All Aboard? -- Politics Daily

One of the prime examples of an area of public policy where conservative dogma seems contrary to conservative ideology:

Effete liberals love mass transit and red-blooded American conservatives disdain it, right? That's the stereotype, all right. Libs love their commuter trains, while we conservatives dig our pickup trucks. There's surely something to those images, but a new book titled, "Moving Minds; Conservatives and Public Transportation," seeks to lead some 21st century conservatives to rethink their view of riding the subway. 

This debate comes at a time when conservatives stand accused of failing to embrace new ideas (in fact, the authors would argue this is really the renewing of an old idea, but you get the point.) Clearly, a conservative arguing in favor of mass transit dispels the notion that conservatives aren't receptive to exploring new solutions to the nation's ongoing problems. Both sides are guilty of taking stances on issues -- and sticking with them -- regardless of the emergence of new facts or changing priorities. It's all too uncommon to find an adherent of one political philosophy championing an issue generally identified as "belonging" to the other team. For this reason, if nothing else, the authors of this book deserve attention, even praise.

Read the rest at: Conservatives and Mass Transit: All Aboard? -- Politics Daily

Friends of the Franklin Public Library need your used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines

The Friends of the Franklin Public Library are looking for gently used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines for their Annual Book Sale, which will be held on Friday, September 11th.

From the Friends:

This popular annual event helps the Friends sponsor numerous events at the Library such as the wonderful cooking classes presented by Staci Joers, quilting classes or the successful Divas and Divine Desserts program. In addition to these great community events, the funds raised by the Friends help support programs that the Library budget simply cannot afford. This past year the Friends donated $14,000 toward computers for the children’s department, $8,000 toward updated books about foreign countries and the 50 states and $4,500 toward the children’s, young adult and adult summer reading program.

Help the Friends continue supporting the Franklin Public Library and to continue to offer these community programs by donating your books and other material to the Library for their sale. Drop off your used books at the Franklin Public Library between the hours of 10 and 8:30 Monday through Thursday and 10 to 5pm on Friday.

The book sale will be held on Friday, September 11th, 10am - 5pm, Saturday, September 12th, 10am - 5pm, and Sunday, September 13th, 1pm - 4pm

A special Friends only presale will be held on Thursday, September 10th from 6pm to 8:30. 

Not currently a Friend of the Franklin Library?  Pick up a Friends’ membership form at the Library or e-mail the Friends of the Franklin Public Library at FranklinFriends@mcfls.org 

The Franklin Public Library is located at:  9151 West Loomis Road, Franklin, WI 53132  Phone (414) 425-8214.

The Friends of the Franklin Public Library are looking for gently used books CDs, DVDs, tapes, and magazines for their Annual Book Sale, which will be held on Friday, September 11th.

From the Friends:

This popular annual event helps the Friends sponsor numerous events at the Library such as the wonderful cooking classes presented by Staci Joers, quilting classes or the successful Divas and Divine Desserts program. In addition to these great community events, the funds raised by the Friends help support programs that the Library budget simply cannot afford. This past year the Friends donated $14,000 toward computers for the children’s department, $8,000 toward updated books about foreign countries and the 50 states and $4,500 toward the children’s, young adult and adult summer reading program.

Help the Friends continue supporting the Franklin Public Library and to continue to offer these community programs by donating your books and other material to the Library for their sale. Drop off your used books at the Franklin Public Library between the hours of 10 and 8:30 Monday through Thursday and 10 to 5pm on Friday.

The book sale will be held on Friday, September 11th, 10am - 5pm, Saturday, September 12th, 10am - 5pm, and Sunday, September 13th, 1pm - 4pm

A special Friends only presale will be held on Thursday, September 10th from 6pm to 8:30. 

Not currently a Friend of the Franklin Library?  Pick up a Friends’ membership form at the Library or e-mail the Friends of the Franklin Public Library at FranklinFriends@mcfls.org 

The Franklin Public Library is located at:  9151 West Loomis Road, Franklin, WI 53132  Phone (414) 425-8214.

Saving the suburbs: Interview with the authors of Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs

Architects Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson explain how existing suburbs can be redesigned and redeveloped in their book RETROFITTING SUBURBIA.

Common Council tonight: Slouch toward mediocrity or reach for excellence?

"That ribbon of highway..." In a residential area.

The Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 at the monumental Franklin Law Enforcement Center.

Some background:

On February 27th, the Wisconsin DOT sent a memo to Franklin outlining new deadlines for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus fund applications.

There were no emergency meetings of committees and boards of which I'm aware. (The Economic Development Commission, in fact, canceled our 2/23/09 meeting for reasons to which I'm not privy).

On March 2nd, one of the city's construction consultants, R.A. Smith, sent an email to Franklin's city engineers:

John & Ron,

On behalf of the Village of Greendale, we would like to know if the City of Franklin has interest in pursuing Round 2 stimulus funding for the S. 51st St. project both municipalities discussed last year?

We have attached a map of the segment and the WDOT round 2 stimulus letter for your review.

Please let us know your thoughts on the project very soon due to the tight funding application timeframes.

That was all we needed, apparently. On March 10th the Board of Public Works recommended pursuing the project. It does not specify a four-lane urban highway, but that is the only cross-section available at this point - - reason enough to be concerned.

So the list of possible stimulus funded projects now reads like this:

a) W. Puetz Road (S. Street to St. Martins Road)
b) S.  Street (Puetz Road to Drexel Avenue)
c) S. 51st Street (North of Rawson Avenue to College Avenue in Greendale)
d) Additional Project

That's it.

Did I miss the brainstorming session that came up with these projects? Or, do we determine projects based on the recommendation of contractors who can bill us for the project they suggest?

We are on the cusp of another missed opportunity to rise above mediocrity and more "entropy made visible."

Franklin's streets and roads  - both the pavement AND the network - are in desperate need of rehabilitation

Excellent planning?

The city of Franklin almost flamboyantly thumbs its nose at the idea of traveling from place to place without a vehicle. Residential roads are built wide and curvilinear for maximum speed - kids and bikes be damned.

Nearby is still far away.

There are neighborhoods close enough to Franklin High School to be illuminated by the sports field's lights - yet the residents of those houses have no way to walk or bike to the high school! Is it any wonder that so many vehicles are on the road at the beginning and end of school days? That's an embarrassment.

When did this become acceptable?

Pleasant View Elementary remains accessible by a single thin road with not so much as a shoulder to retreat to if you should attempt to walk or bike to the school. Another embarrassment.

In fact, the County Sheriff has determined that all of Franklin School District is in an unusually hazardous transportation area. Therefor, all students in the district are entitled to bus transportation.

Subdivisions that get to hear the trucks loading and unloading at the Sendik's on 51st and Rawson have no access to it via foot or bicycle, which would make their proximity a pretty spectacular amenity.

And that's all right with us? We're not going to bother to address any of that with stimulus funds?

Franklin seems content to ignore opportunities to increase connectivity. I have a list of almost 600 Wisconsin bicycle and pedestrian projects funded or co-funded by the federal government from 1993 to 2007. FRANKLIN DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE LIST AT ALL.

Not. Even. Once.

What happened to Complete Streets?

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding should not be used to expand a system of roads that do not provide safe travel for people who are walking or bicycling. Too many Franklin streets are designed to be wide and fast, without sufficient sidewalks, crosswalks or bicycle lanes. We, in fact, CREATE traffic with huge roads and no alternative.

Little or no consideration has been given for the safety of older people, children, or people with disabilities. These incomplete streets are dangerous and create barriers for people to get to jobs, school, the doctor, and fully participate in civic life.

Basically, Franklin's system of ever-widening collector streets without regard to interior grid roads - a blatant concession to subdivision developers - does nothing but concentrate and increase traffic, create noise, and make it impossible to travel from place to place without firing up an internal combustion engine.

This is not an environment that encourages businesses to move in and take root. It is not an environment friendly to commercial enterprises that benefit from the ability to linger (book store, coffee shops, etc.).

So, tonight, the Common Council will vote on a hastily thrown-together package of road projects - - unless they dare to rise above and call for further discussion IMMEDIATELY to better maximize the opportunity presented by stimulus funds.

And I mean meetings that start TOMORROW and incorporate input from various interested parties and persons who have expertise beyond TRAFFIC ENGINEERING.

Ah, "traffic engineering." Evidently, the pure basis for all growth in Franklin.

Keep the following excerpt from the book SUBURBAN NATION in mind at tonight's meeting when engineers cite "traffic analysis" and "throughput forecasting":

Those who are skeptical of the need for a fundamental reconsideration of transportation planning should take note of something we experienced a few years ago. In a large working session on the design of Playa Vista, an urban infill project in Los Angeles, the traffic engineer was presenting a report of current and projected congestion around the development. From our seat by the window, we had an unobstructed rush-hour view of a street he had diagnosed as highly congested and in need of widening. Why, then, was traffic flowing smoothly, with hardly any stacking at the traffic light? When we asked, the traffic engineer offered an answer that should be recorded permanently in the annals of the profession: "The computer model that we use does not necessarily bear any relationship to reality."

So, let us hope they spare us their "projected traffic" studies. (More on concepts like INDUCED TRAFFIC and LATENT DEMAND in later postings.)

More to come ...

See also: 7 Most Ridiculous New Roads Being Built with Stimulus Funds

The Town That Neil Young Built

This comes via Strange Maps:

332 - The Town That Neil Young Built:

Each year around November 12th, whenever their schedules allow for a collective weekend off, a dozen not-so-young urban professionals leave the comfort of their city homes to sample the rugged charm of a remote log cabin. In the backwoods, the men (it is an all-male fellowship) don flannel shirts of the type favoured by Neil Young, and play his music non-stop. Thus, they celebrate Young’s birthday — and also by drinking a lot of beer, and by behaving like the uncouth backwoodsmen that any group of men eventually revert to when collectively removed from their womenfolk.

Christof Rutten is one of those men, recently returned from the latest of those outings. He sends in this map, culled from the latter part of Young’s weird, erratic oeuvre. Young has produced some of rock ‘n roll’s most emblematic anthems and ballads, but has also ventured down experimental avenues never explored before, or since, and all the better for it. Young tried his hand at rockabilly after its heyday, and electronic music before it was fashionable. He also penned a rock opera (or “concept album”, to use an even more suspect term).

Greendale, released in 2003 by the transplanted Canadian (Young lives in LA) is about life in a fictitious Californian coastal town as seen through the prism of the Green family. The songs on Greendale deal with some of Young’s favourite themes — war (and anti-war protest in general), environmentalism, social ostracism, violent crime and all of their social consequences. Greendale focuses on an ageing patriarch (also a pioneer and hippie) his son Earl (an artist and Vietnam vet), granddaughter Sun (environmental activist), and the spiel kickstarts when ne’er-do-well Jed kills a policeman.

The story, amplified by a dvd and a very extended booklet included in the packaging, echoes the energetic political activism of the Sixties — or tries to, and possibly fails (depending on how big a fan you are). The album cover for Greendale is a map of the fictional town, showing how its centre hugs the Californian coast (the outskirts continue on the back of the album). On the album’s very own website, you can scroll over the map to enlarge certain details relevant to the songs (*):

• Captain John Green’s boat (left of the left hand pier);
• Jed’s seafish apartment (to the right of the boat);
• Scene of the crime (on the far left, where the road that dissects Greendale enters the map);
• Carmichael’s house (between the road and the ocean, near the centre of the map);
• John Lee’s bar, Greendale Mortuary (scene of Carmichael’s service), Sun’s room at rooming house (scene of FBI raid), Greendale High School, Motel (all near the ocean, between the pier and the far right of the map);
• Double ‘E’ Ranch (in the bottom left corner of the map);
• Jail, grandma and grandpa’s house, gallery (all below the main road, near the center of town).

In keeping with Young’s  abrasive, anti-commercial image, the map does not link to a place where you can buy the album. It merely states: This town is now available.

Many thanks to Mr Rutten for sending in this map; does anybody have it in a higher resolution? Also, any extra information on the map’s (and the album’s) back story is more than welcome.

*: this album cover spans only the western end of town; the website covers double as much ground. 

Modern street "design": Trapping the elderly, pre-teens and differently-abled in their homes

If we keep building illogical roads and creating "single purpose pods" the way we currently so here in Franklin, pray each night that you never get too old and/or infirm to drive a vehicle.

Sidewalks are a luxury?

Curved roads built for unimpeded speed in residential neighborhoods? 

Complaints that demonstrably speed-reducing, safety-increasing roundabouts are "confusing" (i.e. "impede my speed")?

Lack of pedestrian connectivity between something so basic as a high school and the neighborhoods it serves?

Wonderful recreational trails - - that lead nowhere and require a parking lot?

A well-used library with nothing commercially useful within walking distance?

Over-burdened arterial streets that create a near-insurmountable barrier to even the most hardy of walkers and bicyclists - -  not to mention children and adolescents who desire a bit of non-vehicular freedom - - that the city seeks to widen further?

A "city civic center district" that allowed a strip mall and enormous parking lot to virtually eliminate non-vehicular access and any sense of useful civic public space?

I don't see people - or businesses - tripping over themselves to move to a community that is so short-sighted. It's time for a change.

Modern American street systems create insurmountable problems for some of the nation's elderly. Daniel M. Cary tells of an episode that took place in Stuart, Florida. His wife was standing in line at a supermarket checkout when she noticed that the elderly woman in front of her seemed upset. The elderly woman fumbled with her purse and dropped her keys. When Mrs. Cary offered to help, it was as if an emotional dam broke loose. The elderly woman let out that she was nervous because tomorrow she had to take a test to have her driver's license renewed. "If I fail, I don't know what I'm going to do," the woman said. "I won't even be able to drive to the grocery store. My husband died several years ago. I've been living in the same house for twenty years. I don't want to move." The woman's independence and ability to remain in familiar surroundings were in jeopardy.

- A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb, by Philip Langdon

WAR and OIL: Now the truth is bubbling up

Part THREE of today's OIL trifecta.

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.

Bill Moyers

If you've read Greg Palast's brilliant ARMED MADHOUSE (handy ordering box below), none of what Bill Moyers lays out in this video is a surprise to you. The good news is, the truth is bubbling up to the mainstream; Bill Moyers is generally the pathfinder for the Katie Courics of the media world. 

Greg Palast could find no voice in the American mainstream press; "journalism" is not widely spoken here. He had to get his support and funding from the BBC. And Palast got it right. I have yet to meet the movement conservative who can confront any of the issues raised by Palast in his book and Moyers in his commentary below. The most I can get is, "You just hate George Bush."

When they eventually prosecute Cheney and Bush, can we hope that the vanguard of the right wing echo chamber (Limbaugh, Hannity, et.al.) is brought up on charges as co-conspirators? 

Watch the little local wanna-bes (you know who you are) scurry when that happens. They would rather go to war than invest - - - and I mean invest heavily - - in transportation, infrastructure, and energy alternatives that would make such a war unnecessary. 

Spend about nine minutes with Bill Moyers and the hard truth. (Transcription)

 

Personal Happiness

Personal Happiness:

"The personal happiness of many Americans has been undermined by poorly designed housing and public space, yet few of us employ the language of real estate development, architecture, or urban planning to trace the contours of loneliness, boredom, weariness, discrimination, or financial worry in our lives."

Source: Dolores Hayden, Redesigning The American Dream, The Future of Housing, Work and Family Life.

(Via Slow Home.)

"I'm not saying that sprawl is good," said author Robert Bruegmann. "All I'm saying is that it is not necessarily bad."

That's no way to sell books! Excellent commentary of a forum in New York entitled "Can Sprawl Be Beneficial", courtesy of StreetsBlog. Once again, it appears as though so-called "pro-sprawl" pundits have a real apples-and-oranges view of what sprawl is when they seek to demonstrate historical examples. Bruegmann ought to come see the so-called "city center" here in Franklin, Wisconsin before he decides he knows what sprawl can be (hint - it ain't Leicester Square):

Folks who went to yesterday's Municipal Art Society forum "Can Sprawl Be Beneficial" heard what must be the best possible defense for suburban sprawl from one of its recently arrived boosters: "I'm not saying that sprawl is good," said author Robert Bruegmann. "All I'm saying is that it is not necessarily bad."

In other, tepid, words: Sprawl is not good. In fact, it might be bad. But it's not necessarily bad.

Rather than struggle to fill a room in an office park at the interesection of I-287 & I-78 out in Jersey, Bruegmann, who is promoting his new book providing intellectual cover for sprawl, bravely ventured into Midtown Manhattan to tell an evidently skeptical crowd that skyscrapers use a lot of energy, cities have more pavement than suburbs, and sprawl, if you define it the right way, isn't the huge problem that people make it out to be.

Bruegmann says that the desire to flee the city is the natural order of human existence from Herculaneum to today, that it is the natural choice people make when it is given to them. And that we ought to embrace it for that. Casting himself as one who is overturning conventional wisdom, Bruegmann waters down the definition of sprawl as it is commonly understood, rendering the rest of his pro-sprawl assertions more or less meaningless. In doing so, he confuses growth of the city with sprawl. Here is the image of Leicester Square in 1750 that he used in his slideshow to define early sprawl.

London's Leicester Square in 1750: If this is sprawl, let's have some more.

Link: StreetsBlog � Can Sprawl Be Beneficial?.