Posted: Nov. 7, 2009
By Richard L. Birch
My
wife and I own an apartment in the European city where her parents came
from. Almería's population is over 200,000, and it's been around for
hundreds of years.
As
a pedestrian, one is in constant negotiation with cars and scooters
because the streets are jagged in shape, cramped, sometimes lacking in
sidewalks - and teeming with life. Shop storefronts display dresses and
shoes that would star at the Oscars. The window of a hardware store
accommodates three centuries of door latches, from the rustic to the
ultra-high tech. Every step has my head craning in one direction or
another, even if it is to wave a car right through a stop sign as I
slip around behind - faster and friendlier for both of us.
Arriving
home from Spain, we drove through Milwaukee from Mitchell International
Airport, and the eerie calm of sealing ourselves behind car windows
settled over us; the "carness" of our life here spread out like a gray
pall all around us.
Instead
of people, conversation, shopping, eating and attending to business on
the hoof, we were surrounded by access roads, parking lots, highways
and bridges until we eventually passed under the shadow of the hulking
three-story garage whose gloomy, and empty, cavern overshadows our
magnificent art museum.
We Americans are all infrastructure - and no people.
Friends
here are surprised that we don't own a car in Almería. There's no need,
even though life there is pretty regular and not some outlandish
eco-haven like Carmel, Calif., with its boutique clothing shops and
celebrity clubs.
Everything
we bought for our apartment in Almería we bought on foot. Plumbers,
furniture stores, computer equipment and appliances are only a few
minutes away. When we bought our washing machine, the owner's brother
was waiting for us at our door, our washer on a handcart, even though
we lingered for only moments on the walk home.
What's
the cost for living our American way? It's not just the thousands of
dollars for the second car, insurance and gas. We also have to support
a lake of concrete around us - and gas, electric and sewer lines to
stretch out past the near-vacant belts beyond the older suburbs.
Property taxes in Almería on our condo are one-twelfth our taxes in
Milwaukee, even though the value of the two homes is roughly the same.
One-twelfth. Oh, and they throw in free health insurance.
That's
a lot of concrete, wire and pipes to keep up - and patrol. Milwaukee's
close suburbs have residential streets that have room for two lanes of
traffic going each way, plus both parking and turning lanes. Six lanes
of concrete.
I
was driving on a street like that recently - it's residential, so I was
the only car in sight, although several white lines directed me around
like I had a ring in my nose on the rare chance that a second car may
venture into sight. Not so long ago, people's eyes grew large when a
news announcer glowed about "six-lane super-highways" in Los Angeles.
Now we have them to serve blocks where only a few houses stand.
Where are the people? Nobody is coming; nobody is going.
If
we gained something for our money, I'd happily pay it. But I look south
out the window of my downtown office and see streets and highways, of
course. Plus parking garages, ramps, driveways, surface lots and street
parking - not to mention the gas stations, auto-part stores and car
washes.
Our
cities (and Milwaukee still remains one of the most attractive) are
dead zones with small pods of life barricaded between the elements that
support the passage, storage and care of cars. In our most densely
trafficked sidewalks, it is a hundred feet between businesses whose
windows have a chance of being interesting to look in at while walking
past. Throw in a bank or two and one has to take a taxi to get between
shops where people congregate over a cup of coffee or buy a shirt.
No wonder we all drive.
Almería
is modern enough to need cars. For the most part, cars brought into the
city are routed to underground parking. As expensive as that might
sound, what otherwise would be dead space at street level goes instead
to businesses with apartments above, as well as an interesting
collection of squares, parks and kiosks that are a part of every day's
stroll.
Read this again: one-twelfth our property taxes.
Still,
it's not about the money. It's about life. We stood on the street one
night in one of America's few cities that are dense and walkable: New
York City. A local television station was hosting a karaoke event.
Tough-looking teenagers in floppy pants were singing along with suited
Japanese businessmen, middle-aged housewives in sensible shoes,
Orthodox Jews in yarmulkes, students in backpacks and a couple of
tourists from Milwaukee. An older businessman waited at a crosswalk
with me the next day, giving directions to a pair of young guys who
would raise hair at the back of my neck if I ran into them on a lonely
stretch. They thanked the older man and headed off. The businessman
explained, "When you're on the street, everyone knows you have to deal
with people. We're all in this together."
A
more ominous view about our expansively concreted lives came from a
Bulgarian programmer who has just moved here. Commenting about our
infrastructure, America's glory and disaster, he said, "People who are
separate are easier to control."
Malls
are about the only public place in America where people aren't
separate. Look around a mall, though - teenagers hang with their
high-school friends, parents keep toddlers in the firm grip of their
hands, bums sag alone on a bench, while walkers stride by in the world
of their headphones. We're as sealed off from each other as first-class
is from economy on a long and monotonous flight.
In
non-American cities, you see grandparents sitting with teenagers or
elegantly dressed women mixing it up in a café with workmen taking a
lunchtime coffee or beer. I've often seen fathers reading to their
young children. Right out in public - an act that would rank as
deprivation here, when the tykes could be mesmerized instead by a video
in the back seat of their Escalade or Tundra.
Almería
is seven hours ahead of Milwaukee, and my wife happened to call me at
what was 3 in the morning her time. She'd just gotten in from dinner
and a concert (whole families are out at midnight; nothing about their
crazy schedule surprises me anymore). She had walked home alone, though
of course she was not actually alone on the street. I was just leaving
for a friend's who lived some blocks away, past several alleys, garages
and shuttered stores flanked by asphalt pads.
I drove.
Richard L. Birch of Milwaukee is a business writer.
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