Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Perhaps you can never have too many houses, regardless of market conditions ...

The right idea (smaller lots), unfortunately, the Estates of St. Martins plan does not appear to be well thought out and the location is one of opportunity rather than the best place to create such a development; the rectangular cleared area below is the land in question - - note the proximity of the elementary school (good), but the imposing crossroads that would need to be traversed to get there (bad). Also, the development is incongruous with the lots surrounding it.

Nipped in the bud by the Franklin Plan Commission, it appears.

From Franklinnow.com:

Developer's plans drained by planning panel

Concerns still linger on proposed 22-lot housing subdivision

By John Neville
Staff Writer

Posted: Sept. 26, 2007

Acknowledging density and drainage concerns, the Franklin Plan Commission has turned down various requests for a 22-lot subdivision on 18.2 acres in the 7500 block of South North Cape Road.

The panel denied a request at a Sept. 20 City Hall meeting from developer Jim O'Malley to rezone property for the proposed single-family home subdivision, The Estates of St. Martins. Also rejected later in the meeting were requests for a preliminary plat and a master plan amendment for rezoning.

Commissioner Kevin Haley said the panel had expected to receive more detailed plans for the subdivision, located near the Franklin-Muskego border. Haley said it was still clear drainage problems will result from placing too many residences on proportionately undersized lots, despite a lack of information.

Those lots range from 25,011 to 40,965 square feet and, as planned, involve an average of about $130,000 for lots and $270,000 for a home.

It was O'Malley's second appearance before the commission for the proposed development.

The developer said he had reduced the subdivision plans by four lots since July and has agreed to pay for extending municipal water - at an expense of about $190,000 - to the site. Since that first meeting, at which the commission took no action, O'Malley has also relocated a stormwater pond.

O'Malley also said he had held meetings with neighbors opposed to his initial proposal and had convinced most his project had merit.

However, four neighborhood residents spoke out again against the revised plan Sept. 20, saying it featured too much housing on too-small lots.

Franklin residents Tony Raymond and Lee Fry said O'Malley will have to reduce his plan to at least 18 lots to placate their concerns, mostly about drainage and housing density.

O'Malley said lowering the lot number will sharply drive up the expense of a lot, but commission aldermanic representative Ken Skowronski said the Plan Commission does not get involved in financing developments.

Former Franklin Alderman James Bergmann supported the subdivision, saying it will increase the city's share of property and school tax revenue, as well as provide water to nearby Country Dale School. Bergmann said the school is the only one in the district without sprinklers or nearby water hydrants.

 

John Neville can be reached at  [email protected] or (262) 446-6609.

"Perils for Pedestrians" public access TV show

An expansion on yesterday's post about children losing the ability to walk to school from John Z. Wetmore of the Perils for Pedestrians website:

For a look at last year's Walk to School Day in Delaware, see my tv series this week.  Here's the info:

Tuesday, September 25, The Universityhouse Channel will show Episode 128 of "Perils For Pedestrians".

Contents of Episode 128 (2007):
--We attend Walk to School Day in Delaware.
--We learn about Starkville in Motion in Starkville, Mississippi.
--We look at pedestrian safety at a highway interchange in Raleigh, North Carolina.
--We visit Broadway in Saratoga Springs, New York.

DISH Network Channel 9411 -- The Universityhouse Channel
Tuesday  --  9:30 PM Eastern, 6:30 Pacific

Episode 128 is also available on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8783602280932460408

Note:  Public access cable channels are showing different episodes than DISH Network.

Thank you.

John Z Wetmore

Episode 110 posted above.

Kids are losing their ability to walk to school

Another of the many disadvantages of unplanned suburban communities: no road grid means no way to safely walk to a school that is within eyesight of your subdivision.

From the New York Times:

Turning the Ride to School Into a Walk

 

By JANE E. BRODY

   

The signs say “School Is Open, Drive Safely.” Of course, one should always drive safely, school or no school, and not only “when children are present,” as speed limit signs near schools often state. If only these signs reflected what health and safety experts hope will become a major change in how children get to and from school and after-school activities.

Forty years ago, half of all students walked or bicycled to school. Today, fewer than 15 percent travel on their own steam. One-quarter take buses, and about 60 percent are transported in private automobiles, usually driven by a parent or, sometimes, a teenager.

The change was primarily motivated by parents’ safety concerns — a desire to protect their children from traffic hazards and predators. But it has had several unfortunate consequences. Children’s lives have become far more sedentary. They are fatter than ever and at greater risk of developing hypertension, diabetes and heart disease at young ages.

The sedentary life also affects their behavior and the ability to learn. Studies have shown that children who engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity show improvement in concentration, memory, learning, creativity and problem solving, as well as mood, for up to two hours after exercise.

With more children being driven to school, traffic congestion has mushroomed. That has increased stress to drivers and risks to pedestrians and cyclists, as well as air pollution, especially in and around schools. Parents who drive their children to school make up about a quarter of morning commuters. More traffic also means more vehicular accidents, endangering the lives of children and the adults who drive them. It has become a vicious cycle that must be broken, and soon.

Safely moving children to and from school and after-school activities is a matter of great concern, not only to parents, but also to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which in July issued a policy statement on school transportation safety.

School Buses Versus Cars

The academy’s statistics on injuries and fatalities suggest that being driven to school in a passenger vehicle is by far the most dangerous way to get there, and riding in a school bus is the safest. Seventy-five percent of the fatalities and 84 percent of the injuries occur in passenger vehicles, but just 2 percent of student deaths and 4 percent of injuries result from travel by school bus.

The numbers might not tell a complete story. The academy’s Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention and the Council on School Health pointed out that “school bus crash data are incomplete, and that injuries cannot be reliably estimated.

“The first emergency-department-based study of nonfatal school-bus-related injuries found that the number of injuries, 17,000 annually to children 0 to 19 years of age, greatly exceeded previously published estimates.”

When the Minneapolis highway bridge collapsed this summer and a school bus filled with children plunged toward the Mississippi River, witnesses described children “flying” around in the bus. There are just two ways that could have occurred. Either the bus was not equipped with safety restraints or the children, all of whom escaped safely, were not buckled in.

Before child-restraint systems and safety belts came along, large school buses relied on “compartmentalization” to protect their occupants. This meant closely spaced seats with high energy-absorbing backs, which we now know to be inadequate, especially in rollovers and side impacts with other large vehicles. As of this summer, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey and New York, as well as many local school districts, had passed laws requiring seat belts in school buses. California requires them in newly made buses.

Children should be secured in age-appropriate restraints in all motor vehicles. On a school bus, someone other than the driver should be responsible for assuring this.

There are potential side benefits, too: better student behavior, a more consistent seat belt habit among children and fewer distractions for the driver.

The academy urged that all school buses built before 1977 be retired from use “because they are deficient in several significant safety standards.” Old buses also spew undue emissions of pollution that children inhale, increasing respiratory symptoms and hospitalization for asthma.

Safer Routes

Cities and communities throughout the country are trying to encourage more children to walk or bike to school. The only way this can occur is if children can travel there safely. That means more sidewalks and clearly marked bike lanes or paths separated from roadways, lower traffic speed on school routes, safer crosswalks, well-trained crossing guards at all corners near schools and adult supervision.

Also helpful are traffic-calming measures — changes in the design of streets and intersections to slow traffic automatically to acceptable speeds. In 2005, Congress allocated $612 million over five years to help communities create such safer routes to school.

Seattle has reported a 77 percent to 91 percent reduction in traffic accidents after installing a citywide traffic-calming program that included 700 new residential traffic circles. Just last week, Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced that New York would spend $32 million in federal money on a Safe Routes to School initiative that includes transportation and public education projects across the state. More information on traffic calming is available from the Local Government Commission at www.lgc.org or by calling (800) 290-8202.

Oct. 3 is the date of  national Walk to School Day this year, promoted by the Partnership for a Walkable America (www.walktoschool-usa.org). Children who fail to learn how to walk safely face greater risks whenever they are pedestrians. They have to learn when it is safe to cross and how to judge the speed of oncoming traffic. They must be taught to look both ways for traffic, even on one-way streets. Vehicles do sometimes make mistakes, and bikes can come from any direction.

Parents, who are notoriously pressed for time to exercise, can benefit, too, if they walk or bike with their children to school. Just as parents have managed to organize car pools and play groups, they can organize groups of children who walk or cycle to school accompanied by a different adult each day or week. A walking version of the car pool, the Walking School Bus, has been successful in Canada and England. Parents share the responsibility of escorting children to and from school on foot or bike.

For guidance on setting up a Walking School Bus,  a guidebook is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Check the Web site, www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/kidswalk/, or call toll-free,  (888) 232-4674.

No need to wait for Walk to School Day. Start today to promote better health and safety for all schoolchildren.

 

Milwaukee's parks get another kick to the head

The long decline continues as Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker proposes more county park job cuts.

I've posted below some park pictures from Gretchen Schuldt's Milwaukee Rising blog (visit her blog to see more).

Color conservative Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran unconcerned:

Well, yeah. The place needs a coat of paint. The tennis courts need some Roundup. Which isn't particularly complex work.

Patrick needs to read that Roundup container's instruction panel a little closer - -  I doubt that it's recommended for patching fractured blacktop surfaces, nor can it spray out a new regulation net.

Hmmmm - - part-time park workers armed with Roundup, and American soldiers forced to add scrap "improvised armor" to their Humvees in Iraq. Conservatives are consistent in their shortsightedness, at least.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Editorial: Cutting into bone

With parks already in decline, now's not the right time for the county executive to slash the full-time parks maintenance staff. Supervisors need to look at this carefully.

From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Sept. 20, 2007

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's proposed budget for next year would abolish 81 additional full-time county parks jobs. Walker says the parks won't suffer, because the job cuts are part of a broader plan to reorganize parks maintenance operations.

For the sake of our parks system, we hope he's right, but we're skeptical. Our parks are already paying the price for chronic cuts in staff and deferred maintenance.

That skepticism is shared by some members of the County Board, who have justifiably chided Walker for refusing to even consider an advisory referendum on raising the county sales tax to produce more revenue for parks.

Walker points out that of the 81 jobs he proposed to eliminate next year, 31 are vacant. He also noted that his budget calls for hiring 20 new forestry and maintenance workers who will have more supervisory duties, provides $600,000 to hire more seasonal workers because much of the work in parks is seasonal and includes $1.1 million to purchase new mowers and other maintenance equipment and gear.

The budget also calls for creating a park patrol of 12 half-time seasonal workers on bicycles with two-way radios.

The combination of the new positions, new equipment and more seasonal help will give parks administrators more managerial flexibility and resources, Walker said Thursday. In fact, he said, the Parks Department will have more hours of help available next year than it does now.

Walker is also proposing $14 million in new construction next year, including $2.5 million for the new Lincoln Park Family Aquatic Center and $1.5 million for three new splash pads to replace old wading pools in other parks. That makes sense, as does his decision to keep the Dr. Martin Luther King and Kosciusko community centers open. They earlier had been targeted for closure.

But we question the wisdom of slashing so many full-time parks maintenance workers in one fell swoop and relying so heavily on seasonal workers. That changing pool of workers will need to be trained and retrained, and valuable institutional memory will be lost.

With the parks already in trouble, now is not the best time for such drastic shifts in staffing.

Should Milwaukee County cut 81 parks positions? Why or why not? Send a letter to: Journal Sentinel editorial department

Extended-stay hotel plans ok'ed for 27th street

Hard to understate the positive impact something like this will have on the area pictured above.

From Franklinnow.com:

Staybridge hotel plan moves forward
By John Neville

The Franklin Plan Commission endorsed plans for a U-shaped, 114-suite, five-story Staybridge Suites Hotel on South 27th Street near West Ryan Road.

The panel's action on Thursday at a City Hall public hearing included recommendations the Common Council OK requests for rezoning, a certified survey map and wetland exceptions.

P. Michael Cohen, senior vice president of the Bricton Group Inc., said the upscale hotel would cost at least $10 million to build and would include such amenities as a 24-seat movie theater, conference rooms, a library and a shuttle to the airport.

Department of City Development Director Douglas Wheaton backed the development. He said the hotel would provide up to 40 jobs and give the city its first extended stay hotel.

"What would it take for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and other state leaders to question the need to spend a mind-boggling $6 billion dollars expanding and 'enhancing' Southeast Wisconsin's freeway system?"

A guest essay posted at Jim Rowen's The Political Environment:

Milwaukee: Minor league traffic - major league expense-ways

By Steve Filmanowicz,Communications Director - Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

What would it take for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and other state leaders — many of whom are at loggerheads over how to pass a state budget that doesn't raise taxes — to question the need to spend a mind-boggling $6 billion dollars expanding and "enhancing" Southeast Wisconsin's freeway system?

How about the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and top radio talker Charlie Sykes, both of whom pride themselves on their roles in protecting the taxpayers from wasteful government spending?

Well, what if the nation's most authoritative traffic study ranked congestion in Milwaukee 48th among US metro areas — way, way behind gridlock capitals such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas, behind even out-of-the-way locales such as Birmingham, AL and Colorado Springs?

If that were the case, surely the stewards and watchdogs of taxpayer dollars would call for rethinking, scaling back and "value engineering" this colossal public works project. After all, if freeways and major roads in Milwaukee are in or heading towards a crisis, government should by all means step in and fix them.

But if congestion here is already strictly minor league — on a par with Omaha, where the smell wafting from livestock trucks is often a bigger concern than commuting delays — why tax people to the tune of $1,100 per Wisconsin resident to supersize our freeway system?

Why not check the facts first?

The Texas Transportation Institute just issued the latest update of that authoritative study, the 2007 Urban Mobility Report, and it indeed confirms that Milwaukee is already one of the nation's leading traffic success stories — even with its supposedly inadequate 1970s-era highway system.

Even before spending a dime on the $6 billion enhancement/expansion plan.

In fact, the ranking quoted above is from the previous TTI mobility report, published in 2005. The 2007 report ranks Milwaukee even better -- 59th in hours of delay per rush-hour traveler for the most recent year measured (2005). Delays are now worse in Allentown-Bethlehem, PA than in Milwaukee despite what Billy Joel had to say about "closing all the factories down."

And despite what you've been taught to fear about highways being on the verge of filling up, the TTI (a highway-friendly organization, by the way) reports that the actual delays experienced by Milwaukee area travelers have been declining.

In 1995, it was 22 hours per traveler. In 2000, it was 20 hours. And in 2005, it was 19. (This was all before major work began on the Marquette Interchange project, which influenced delays but far, far less than expected.)

At 19 hours of delay per peak-period traveler, Milwaukee is now on par with Tulsa and New Haven, CN.

But hey, if we spend $6 billion more, could we go lower?

For comparison purposes, two metro areas in our population group with lots more highways (and stronger economies), Minneapolis and San Diego, have double and triple the hours of delay per peak traveler and these numbers have generally been growing.

The average Detroit rush-hour traveler experiences 54 hours of delay, despite the region's declining economy and abundance of freeways.

Interestingly, Milwaukee actually subtracted from its highway system slightly -- replacing the .8 mile Park East Freeway with a boulevard and lift bridge -- and saw overall congestion drop.

Whatever measures are used, the 2007 Urban Mobility Report paints a consistently uncongested picture of Milwaukee area traffic. The length of the "rush hour" here was 5.6 hours in the latest year measured (2005), down from 6.2 hours in 2000. The share of congested "lane miles" of highways and principal arterials fell to 25% from 31% in 2000.

Read the report for yourself (http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report) and you'll see that there's next to nothing in it that suggests traffic is a major issue in Milwaukee. In fact, the TTI gives Milwaukee its lowest possible congestion scores (L- and S-), concluding that the region has "much lower" than average congestion and "much slower" than average congestion growth.

Despite being prepared by the top traffic experts in the country, these conclusions differ rather sharply from what was presented to Milwaukeeans by the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) when it debuted its highway plan calling for adding lanes to pretty much every stretch of interstate in Southeast Wisconsin.

The powerpoint presentation SEWRPC used at public hearings is still available on its website and has graphs showing more freeway miles subject to "bumper-to-bumper" traffic (through 1999) and maps showing more and more stretches subject to "extreme" congestion (also through 1999).

SEWRPC typically explains that it takes the long view. Economic fluctuations affect traffic in the short-term. But a check of the TTI archives shows that traffic in Milwaukee has been improving relative to other metro areas for decades.

Milwaukee's ranking in delay per traveler hovered around 40 for much of the 1980s, hit 39 in 1999 and has been heading down towards 59 since then.

SEWRPC has also noted that our aging system needs to rebuilt in some form, so shouldn't it be "modernized" — meaning not just reducing areas of weaving and other obvious problems but broadening existing lanes, lengthening ramps and straightening out curves in order to keep speeds up?

And since we're making room for this footprint-swelling and budget-swelling modernization anyway, why not go the extra mile and add lanes to all of Milwaukee's major highways?

SEWRPC answers these questions without regard for how its plans are funded, creating a bias toward overbuilding, toward paving for a rainy day. The current plan was actually unfunded at the time of its adoption and Governor Doyle has chosen to follow blithely along, stretching the state budget to accommodate it

As a result, we have the Escalade of Cadillac highway plans — the newest and biggest that money can buy. Apologists for freeway overbuilding typically accuse urbanists of wanting to worsen traffic in a vain attempt to force people to live close to the city, but that argument simply doesn't apply here.

Traffic on Milwaukee's major routes is currently at levels that other metro areas would kill for, yet expansion supporters call for spending billions to make it even easier to drive ever longer distances.

As hard as this strategy is to justify today given our Tulsa-sized traffic, it gets even harder when you consider, as Jim Rowen did recently on his blog, that SEWRPC based its future traffic projections on a future with $2.30 per-gallon gasoline. Tight gas supplies and growing global demand will have the power to make these cheap-gas projections look embarrassingly shortsighted.

The decision over how much taxpayer money to plow into freeways — a decision that has admittedly already been made, just without the thorough public review of costs and benefits it deserved — comes down to priorities.

In a region like Milwaukee that is struggling for its economic life in a highly competitive world economy, tax dollars and other economic resources are precious.

If instead of the Escalade highway plan, Governor Doyle were to give Southeast Wisconsin the Camry plan or even the green Prius plan featuring enhanced transit, the couple of billion dollars or so in savings could go to an array of strategically beneficial uses — fixing structurally deficient bridges, making Wisconsin a leader in science and math education from the elementary through university level, or just keeping more money in taxpayers' pockets so they can put it to work themselves.

Or we can build the ultimate highway system and move a few more notches down the congestion list.

After all, we still have Akron and Buffalo to catch.

Another hippie claims the war in Iraq is about oil

[JUST NOTED a similar headline at Pundit Nation. I swear I didn't lift it.]

Alan Greenspan writes in his soon-to-be-published memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

Frantic back-pedaling on The Today Show as Greenspan claimed left wing pundits were seizing on his comment to reinforce their claim that Bush lied:

"It's utterly unfair," Greenspan responded. "I was expressing my view. Saddam Hussein was obviously seeking to get a choke hold on the Straits of Hormuz, where about 18 million barrels a day flow from the Middle East to the industrial world. Had he been able to get hold of a nuclear weapon and indeed move through Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia and control the Straits of Hormuz, it would have caused chaos in the international --"

[Matt] Lauer interjected, "So are we talking about semantics here, Alan? In other words, the administration went to war saying it was all about weapons of mass destruction."

"I believe that they believed that," Greenspan said. "I'm not saying that they believed it was about oil. I'm saying it is about oil and that I believe it was necessary to get Saddam out of there."

Odd.

I like how Matt Lauer calls the former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve "Alan." See, they're all pals. Heck, Greenspan married into the media (his wife is Andrea Mitchell of NBC News).

Then...

"Back to the subject of oil, you say if the war in Iraq was all about oil, some people say, 'Then why are we facing $80 a gallon right now -- a barrel right now?'" NBC's Lauer asked Greenspan. "You make the point that if we hadn't gone to war, we might be facing $130, $140 a barrel. Correct?"

"Correct," Greenspan agreed.

Lauer continued, "And you think that would have been a real possibility."

"Absolutely," Greenspan said. "The way I read Saddam, that's where he was going."

Maybe. But consider this:

The major oil companies (let's go ahead and call them "Big Oil") have everything to gain and nothing to lose with higher per-barrel oil prices, see?

Meanwhile, Neo-cons had their eyes on Saddam before 9/11. In April 2001, Dick Cheney commissioned an "energy security" report that concluded:

Saddam Hussein has ... demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.

But, the concern was just as much centered on the conjecture that Iraq might break ranks with OPEC and exceed its production quotas; prices go down, profits go down, etc. On the other hand, Saddam could make prices go up in the U.S. if he, say, cut production in half, right? Problem is, he would be enriching his Saudi rivals as they raise per-barrel prices due to "scarcity." This "up-down-up-down" potential is not good for business if you're Big Oil; you crave predictability.

But not "lower price" predictability. If Saddam went off his nut somewhere down the line, as described in Greenspan's Straits of Hormuz scenario, he could very well bust OPEC or create a situation where OPEC is significantly weakened (via "rescue") by the timely intervention by a U.S.-led coalition. This would assume, of course, that we had no non-invasion means whatsoever of keeping Saddam "on his nut," so to speak. But a U.S. threat to a saber-rattling Saddam made in exchange for OPEC price concessions would also keep oil prices low.

Not good for Big Oil.

Big Oil is OPEC-friendly: OPEC-enforced price fixing and quotas maintain high oil prices - - more money in Big Oil's pockets, as they get a piece of those increases (oh yes they do!). If some knucklehead like Hussein or Venezuela's  Chavez decides to exceed it's OPEC-mandated quota and flood the market with their country's actual pumping capacity, Big Oil sees its profits go down. If OPEC is somehow busted or significantly weakened - - forget it. Chavez and Venezuela reap sufficient benefits from OPEC quotas, however, that he is unlikely to open the floodgates.

So, the theory posits, Saddam had to go. Soon. Pretty close to Greenspan's take, but indicting Big Oil.

How is this relevant to the topic of sprawl and community planning? Every time we weaken mass transit and enforce decisions that cause more dependence on vehicles, for example, we strengthen Big Oil's hold on our economy and foreign policy. Thus, Big Oil is eager to fund spurious studies and articles that attempt to smear mass transit, global warming's effects, etc. They love cities like Franklin, where lack of connectivity and even sidewalks means a vehicle is needed for virtually any trip beyond your back yard. Burn gas, buy more.
 

Back to our tale:

The OPEC-strengthening war has been very good to Big Oil. From Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse (the book being clutched, unfortunately, by the tasered guy in Florida):

In 2005, Iraq exported only 1.4 million barrels a day, less than under Saddam, less than half its old OPEC quota, less than a fourth of its ultimate capacity and light-years from [Paul] Wolfowitz's promise.

"Less than half its old OPEC quota." Saddam delivered on a perceived threat while in a cell awaiting execution, invasion or not.

The promise? Wolfowitz told Congress on March 27, 2003 - - while explaining that "C'mon, you wussies, the war will virtually pay for itself!" - -

The oil revenues of that country [Iraq] could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years.

Oops. Didn't happen. Those oil revenues relied on privatization of Iraq's oil wells - - a no-no to OPEC and Big Oil (more oil; prices go down). Might even bust OPEC. The Neo-cons ran counter to Big Oil on this one - guess who won?

Big Oil is a pal of OPEC, and Big Oil has a very, very good friend in the Oval Office. The former CEO of Shell Oil USA, Philip Carroll, went to Iraq under government guard and ordered Paul Bremer to abandon all talk of privatizing Iraq's oil production. (Carroll was also former CEO of the third biggest contractor in Iraq - after Bechtel and Halliburton - Fluor Corporation.) How do we know this? Carroll told Greg Palast right to his face. Was he lying? You decide, I guess ...

Needless to say, there was no privatization of Iraq's oil wells despite early plans to do so. OPEC is pleased; Big Oil is pleased. $3 a gallon.

Is the war about oil? If it is, consider the possibility that it's not about getting the oil, but controlling the oil's price. Upward.

 

"It is impossible for them to engage in any kind of constructive discussion. They are so blinded by ideology, so blinded by a need to discredit any thought, idea, or proposal from the left, that it leaves the metropolitan area frozen."

It's interesting how our growing time spent in vehicles coincides with the growth of talk radio blather. Is it any wonder that the voices of the right will stop at nothing to reinforce an auto-centric existence? They'd lose their captive, isolated, road-rage-fueled audience if people suddenly got comfortable on a train or well-kept bus.

Not long ago I was listening on the weekend to WISN (shower radio!); a gardening show hosted by the ubiquitous "Paul" (he co-hosts about a dozen shows every weekend morning) and a woman referred to as... "The Garden Hoe." Classy.

Typically astute observations by Paul Soglin at Waxing America:

The problem with Milwaukee is talk radio.

So long as Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jay Weber dominate the discussion on crime and poverty, there is little hope for Wisconsin's most important city to work its way out of its troubles.

For the past three months as I drove to Milwaukee every other week on I-94 I listened to Milwaukee stations. Sykes on the way into town, Belling on the way out.

This past month I discovered Jay Weber. Yikes.

It is impossible for them to engage in any kind of constructive discussion. They are so blinded by ideology, so blinded by a need to discredit any thought, idea, or proposal from the left, that it leaves the metropolitan area frozen.

On the issue of crime, I will gladly join them in making specific criticisms of some inadequate approaches to law enforcement.

There is a need to jail and convict, there is a need to fix 'broken windows.'

There is a need to drive out drug dealers, extortionists, and pimps from low income communities.

There is a need to stand up to public officials who attack those who might assist the police in combating crime.

But there is also a need to expand the discussion beyond their narrow purposes. Sykes does not understand how New York City lowered crimes rates when Giuliani was mayor. Belling does not understand the management of a police department, and Weber, especially does not understand the nature of community policing in Madison or anywhere else in the western hemisphere.

None of them understand that law enforcement alone does not work. To bring about real change law enforcement must be combined with strategies that strengthen neighborhoods and address issues of job training, education, childcare, transportation, and health.

So long as the discussion is drawn in the narrow lines provided by Sykes-Belling-Weber, there will be no meaningful discussion of the issues and Milwaukee will not arrive at sound solutions.

That is because community leaders, business leaders, and political leaders need the support of citizens to implement change. Sykes-Belling-Weber do an excellent job at what they know best - making sure metropolitan Milwaukee never achieves cohesion.

The problem with Milwaukee is talk radio.

So long as Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jay Weber dominate the discussion on crime and poverty, there is little hope for Wisconsin's most important city to work its way out of its troubles.

For the past three months as I drove to Milwaukee every other week on I-94 I listened to Milwaukee stations. Sykes on the way into town, Belling on the way out.

This past month I discovered Jay Weber. Yikes.

It is impossible for them to engage in any kind of constructive discussion. They are so blinded by ideology, so blinded by a need to discredit any thought, idea, or proposal from the left, that it leaves the metropolitan area frozen.

On the issue of crime, I will gladly join them in making specific criticisms of some inadequate approaches to law enforcement.

There is a need to jail and convict, there is a need to fix 'broken windows.'

There is a need to drive out drug dealers, extortionists, and pimps from low income communities.

There is a need to stand up to public officials who attack those who might assist the police in combating crime.

But there is also a need to expand the discussion beyond their narrow purposes. Sykes does not understand how New York City lowered crimes rates when Giuliani was mayor. Belling does not understand the management of a police department, and Weber, especially does not understand the nature of community policing in Madison or anywhere else in the western hemisphere.

None of them understand that law enforcement alone does not work. To bring about real change law enforcement must be combined with strategies that strengthen neighborhoods and address issues of job training, education, childcare, transportation, and health.

So long as the discussion is drawn in the narrow lines provided by Sykes-Belling-Weber, there will be no meaningful discussion of the issues and Milwaukee will not arrive at sound solutions.

That is because community leaders, business leaders, and political leaders need the support of citizens to implement change. Sykes-Belling-Weber do an excellent job at what they know best - making sure metropolitan Milwaukee never achieves cohesion.

Milwaukee's oncoming transit nightmare

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Walker wants bus fare boosted to $2

Regressive tax 101. Get it from those who have little to give, while degrading conditions and quality of service to the point that taking the bus is a choice of last resort.

Blogger Gretchen Schuldt has an excellent compilation of potential transit cuts as well as "transit users speak out" videos here.

Developer: "This is the right development, in the right place, for all the right reasons for this community"

Something different today, and hopefully a way to further illuminate the city planning process for those who cannot attend meetings on a regular basis.

This past Thursday, the Common Council voted  to allow a development agreement with  Mark Carstensen, the developer of Shoppes at Wyndham Village. There was, frankly, little or no doubt that the vote would be unanimous in favor of the development, but - - as in almost all steps of this troubled development - - that did not mean there wasn't a fair amount of acrimony.

A bit of background: Wyndham Ridge Homeowners (WRHA) spokesman Jaime Maliszewski spoke during the citizen's comment period about their concerns regarding exactly how many trees Mark Carstensen would plant, as well as when they would go in and how long they'd be cared for. After a bit of discussion about how adamantly Cartensen refused to have "tree language" put into the Development Agreement (the council and city engineer did not want another misunderstanding like the one at Fountains of Franklin), Mark Carstensen addressed the council.

I thought it would be instructive to offer actual audio from some of these meetings to convey in a much more immediate manner the interaction that occurs over the stretch of the process. In theory, you should be able to click the link below to hear MP3 audio, or right-click it to save it to your computer. Heck, put it on your iPod.

Mark Carstensen comments to Franklin Common Council (7:50).mp3

"I hear untruths, misfacts - - nobody calls me." Though Mr. Carstensen seems to be mainly addressing the issues brought up by Mr. Maliszewski related to his subdivision (issues which do not concern me or the community-at-large to any great extent), this is a good opportunity for me to note, for the record, that my calls and emails to Mr. Carstensen - - which began when the development was announced - - have all gone unanswered. (My only contact with Mr. Carstensen up to now has been when I sat next to him during the public comment period at the 9/6 Plan Commission meeting to mumble about the importance of a well thought-out site plan, etc.)

While this blog is occasionally critical of the specific points of execution in the Shoppes development, I'm personally rooting for it to succeed. If Mr. Carstensen or a member of his organization sees a statement here that is untrue, distorted, or just plain off the mark, I hope they'll take time to address their concerns directly to me via email or phone.

And I'll repeat in public the request I made many months ago (and to which I received no reply): I would appreciate a 45-minute-or-so conversation with Mark Carstensen regarding Shoppes at Wyndham Village specifically as well as the general challenges and rewards of being a developer in his hometown. It would be a great opportunity for him to set me straight.