Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

UPDATE on Franklin's latest rebuff of a smart growth measure

ABOVE: Two useful stories in Madison and Middleton. BELOW: One story in Franklin

It should be noted that, once again, the city of Franklin's Planning Staff (ne "Department of City Development staff") came down on the side of the angels when increased height limits for commercial buildings were considered. From the 10/8/07 "Report to the Plan Commission" by Plan Staff:

Department of City Development staff supports consideration of increased building heights within the B-3 Community Business District, with the suggestions that any public input be considered, that the noted criteria be used only when a building is proposed to be taller than the 35'/45' currently allowed within the B-3 district, and that such consideration occur as part of a Special Use process.

Toward that end, a draft ordinance including these suggestions is attached.

Rather than change the ordinance in a definitive manner, however, the common council and plan commission unanimously agreed to stick with the old height limits but channel requests for taller buildings to the commission for Special Use consideration.

The good news: According to Planning Manager Joel Dietl, this Special Use approval (for consideration of building heights over 2 stories and 35 feet for retail buildings and 3 stories and 45 feet for office buildings) in the B-3 zoning district is new - - before this, it was simply not possible at all to exceed those heights.  "Special Use" approval consists of review by the Plan Commission, a public hearing, and then approval by the Common Council.

Why do I characterize this as a "rebuff" of smart growth measures? Because if Franklin is going to emerge as a positive alternative for progressive developers (or developers who want to be "progressive" in at least one particular instance), the city government is going to have to get serious and encourage smart growth. Given the lackluster manner with which new developments are exposed and explained to the public (the 10/8/07 "Report to the Plan Commission," for instance, is a 14 page document that should be available as a PDF download at the city web site), I predict that developers will avoid proposing taller, smarter structures in order to avoid entanglement in the Special Use process - - particularly the public hearing.

20-20 Hindsight Department: Imagine if the Ka Martini Bar occupied the second story of 5-Star Coffee (shown above), with an open-air balcony heated in winter; attached, a FedEx/Kinkos (or locally owned equivalent) office center. Or, if a substantial second floor existed over the present structure, office space rented short- and long-term. Same footprint, more usages - - and more income production.

The path of least resistance in Franklin remains a sprawled, one-story building surrounded by parking, unfortunately.

Warren Buffett: The Rich Need to Pay More Taxes

(AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

The rich and the Republicans are very pleased with one basic human foible in particular: Most people hate math. If the general public knew the true inequities that are designed into the United States system of taxation, you'd have multitudes marching on Washington tomorrow.

But there is math involved, and math is hard. So the disappearing middle class picks up the slack with property taxes while we continue to sprawl and stop taking care of parks, infrastructure and schools - - and elect politicians like Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker based on obstinate pledges of no new taxes.

See also: Dozens of the Wealthy Join to Fight Estate Tax Repeal

Billionaire Tells Congress the Tax Code Is Unfair to Lower-Income Americans

Nov. 15, 2007 —

It's been said there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.

Now one of those certainties is under attack from an unlikely source: Warren Buffett. Wednesday, the billionaire founder of the investment firm Berkshire Hathaway Inc. went to Washington to ask Congress not to cut his taxes. Buffett says the super-rich should be taxed more, not less.

In particular Buffett urged the Senate Finance Committee not to repeal the estate tax. It is scheduled to come up for a vote, perhaps as soon as this week.

He told the committee that he recently compared how much he pays in taxes in terms of a percentage of his salary to what his employees pay.

The results? Buffett says he pays 18 percent of his salary to the IRS while the rest of his staff pays nearly twice that - - 33 percent, a lopsided equation that put Buffett in a Robin Hood frame of mind.

"Frankly, an economy where my receptionist pays a lot higher tax rate than, than I do does not strike me as a just economy," he told lawmakers.

Buffet has challenged the elite members of the Forbes 400 list to do their own calculations and compare their tax rate with their receptionists, and then consider his challenge that the rich should pay more.

"I see nothing wrong with those who have been blessed by this society to give a larger portion of their income to the society than somebody that's working very, very hard to make ends meet," Buffett said.

ABC even offered to help Buffett by calling some of the richest 400 and offering to do the tax calculations for them. There were no takers, although the few that returned ABC's calls were polite and left nice voice mails.

"We must regretfully decline," said one.

"Unfortunately he has decided to decline," proclaimed another

"He'd like to decline the interview. & Thank you anyway."

More then 25 billionaires including Ted Turner and Michael Bloomberg declined to talk to ABC News. But some of them sounded off to Forbes magazine. One suggested that Buffett should keep to his area of expertise, calling his ideas "grossly simplistic." Another wondered whether Buffett is going senile.

It was no surprise, of course, that these comments were anonymously submitted, says the Wall Street Journals' Wendy Bounds "The worry is that if they go on the record, the rich people & it puts them in a position of having to cheerlead for something that they're not entirely sure they're comfortable with."

But is it simplistic? We polled some tax experts to get a second opinion. .

"I don't think it's a gross oversimplification at all," said Gene Sperling, from the Center for American Progress, a think tank.

"The richest families in our country pay a lower tax rate than the people who take care of their children, or who teach in their schools, or who would put out a fire if their house were to start to burn," Sperling said.

What about that 55 percent estate tax billionaires pay when they die?

Buffett says repealing the estate tax or the "death tax" as Republican critics call it helps only the rich who don't need the help.

"You would have to attend 200 funerals to be at one where the deceased's estate had to pay that tax," he told senators.

Does the estate tax help level the playing field?

Norman Bartczak from Columbia University says yes. "If you asked most Americans if they could pay their taxes after they die they'd all be happy to do so."

Buffett has promised $1 million to the charity of his or her choice for any billionaire who does the math in his or her office and proves him wrong.

Buffett says three of his close friends have taken him up on the challenge and they all came up with the same results: Ordinary folks are suffering under tax rates nearly twice as high as what billionaires pay.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Franklin blesses sprawl again

Sprawled out, indeed. An ironic counterpoint to the idea of New Suburbanism, and a blow against smart growth here in Franklin.

From Franklinnow.com:

Franklin officials have decided against increasing the height limits now set for commercial buildings.

The Common Council and Plan Commission had considered a change to an ordinance increasing maximum height of retail structures from two stories (35 feet) to five stories (65 feet). It also would also have allowed maximum height of office buildings to go from three stories (45 feet) to five stories with ability to vary the maximum height.

However, after much discussion, the council and commission unanimously agreed to stick with the old height limits but channel requests for taller buildings to the commission for special-use consideration.

UPDATED - Joel Kotkin: "Here's an Earth-to-greens message: Instead of demonizing the suburbs, why not build better, greener ones and green the ones we already have?"

Photo Courtesy of USDA-NRCS

Though Joel Kotkin has been described as (among other things) "the Los Angeles pundit who loves to be hated by planners," there are some interesting points made in this piece.

He addresses the New Urbanism bugaboo (or, more accurately, "the bugaboo of the New Urbanism"; strict adherents prefer it that way, sort of like how some people insist on saying "the Batman"). Regarding suburbs, the New Urbanism seems to proclaim (condescendingly)  "Suburbs bad; cities good." Indeed, certain proponents of the New Urbanism genuinely give the impression that we should all be living in cities hailing taxis, and the suburbs are worthy of nothing less than abandonment so the land can return to pasture.

But, as I’ve struggled to make clear here, the suburbs are not only here to stay, they can be wonderful places for a wide group of people. The trick is to make peace with what already exists and find ways to make incremental improvements within the present structure. Some would call this a form of Smart Growth (which we'll explore in this blog soon). Joel Kotkin is dubbing this approach the New Suburbanism.

As Kotkin explains:

"Put simply, New Suburbanism represents an effort to create better suburban communities. It is a philosophy of planning, design, and development that aims to improve all of the complex elements that make up a successful community -- governmental, physical, economic, social, and environmental -- creating a flexible template for a wide range of existing and newly designed suburbs.

One critical aspect of New Suburbanism lies in its pragmatism. One cannot always assume, for example, that building a new town center, constructing denser housing, or introducing mixed-use development would automatically improve quality of life -- though these strategies can be useful, as we illustrated in our report. In some communities, physical infrastructure systems may be more important, such as schools, parks, and water systems.

New Suburbanism is not a new design paradigm that seeks to compete with or discredit principles of New Urbanism. Instead, our perspective represents a broad-based attempt to find the best, most practical ways to develop and redevelop suburban communities.

Part of Kotkin's mission is to blunt the blanket assertion made by environmentalists attached to New Urbanism that claims denser communities are somehow ecologically benign while sprawled suburbs are choking Mother Earth to death with strip malls and convenient parking. That seems to be his point in this particular article, which will serve as an introduction to "New Suburbanism" with more to come later this week.

UPDATED with a response from former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist.

From Washingtonpost.com (though the piece also ran in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

Hot World? Blame Cities.

By Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres
Sunday, October 14, 2007

It's all the suburbs' fault. You know, everything -- traffic congestion, overweight kids, social alienation. Oh, and lest we forget, global warming and rising energy costs, too.

That latest knock against the burbs has caught on widely. With their multiplying McMansions and exploding Explorers, the burbs are the reason we're paying so much for gas and heating oil and spewing all those emissions that are heating up the atmosphere -- or so a host of urban proponents tells us. It's time to ditch the burbs and go back to the city. New York, Boston, Chicago -- these densely packed metropolises are "models of environmentalism," declares John Norquist, the former Milwaukee mayor who now heads the Congress for a New Urbanism.

But before you sell your ranch house in Loudoun County and plunk down big bucks for that cozy condo in the District, take a closer look at the claims of big cities' environmental superiority. Here's one point that's generally relegated to academic journals and scientific magazines: Highly concentrated urban areas can contribute to overall warming that extends beyond their physical boundaries.

Studies in cities around the world -- Beijing, Rome, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles and more -- have found that packed concentrations of concrete, asphalt, steel and glass can contribute to a phenomenon known as "heat islands" far more than typically low-density, tree-shaded suburban landscapes. As an October 2006 article in the New Scientist highlighted, "cities can be a couple of degrees warmer during the day and up to 6¿ C [11 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer at night." Recent studies out of Australia and Greece, as well as studies on U.S. cities, have also documented this difference in warming between highly concentrated central cities and their surrounding areas.

This is critical as we deal with what may well be a period of prolonged warming. Urban heat islands may not explain global warming, but they do bear profound environmental, social, economic and health consequences that reach beyond city boundaries. A study of Athens that appeared this year in the journal Climatic Change suggested that the ecological footprint of the urban heat island is 1 1/2 to two times larger than the city's political borders.

Further, urban heat islands increase the need for air conditioning, which has alarming consequences for energy consumption in our cities. Since air conditioning systems themselves generate heat, this produces a vicious cycle. Some estimate that the annual cost of the energy consumption caused by the urban heat island could exceed $1 billion.

This is not to say that big buildings can't be made more energy efficient by using new techniques, such as high-tech skin designs, special construction materials to reduce energy consumption, green roofs and passive cooling. But one big problem is that making large buildings green also makes them much more expensive, so that they're less and less affordable for middle-class and working-class families.

Low-density areas, on the other hand, lend themselves to much less expensive and more environmentally friendly ways of reducing heat. It often takes nothing more than double-paned windows to reduce the energy consumption of a two- or three-story house. Shade can bring it down even further: A nice maple can cool a two-story house, but it can't quite do the same for a 10-story apartment building.

Focusing on the suburbs has the added virtue of bringing change to where the action is. Over the past 40 years, the percentage of people opting to live in cities has held steady at 10 to 15 percent. And since 2000, more than 90 percent of all metropolitan growth -- even in a legendary new planners' paradise such as Portland, Ore. -- has taken place in the suburbs.

So we shouldn't be trying to wipe out suburbs. Even with changes in government policy, it would be hard to slow their growth. Europe has strict zoning and highly subsidized mass transit -- policies that are supposed to promote denser development -- but even so, their cities are suburbanizing much like American ones. "Sprawl cities," notes Shlomo Angel, an urban planning expert at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, also are becoming ever more common throughout much of Asia and the developing world.

Here's an Earth-to-greens message: Instead of demonizing the suburbs, why not build better, greener ones and green the ones we already have?

One approach might be to embrace what one writer, Wally Siembab, has dubbed "smart sprawl." Encouraging this sort of development will require a series of steps: reducing commuters' gas consumption with more fuel-efficient cars, dispersing work to centers close to where workers live and promoting continued growth in home-based work. We'll also have to protect open spaces by monitoring development and establishing land conservation based on public and private funding, the latter coming from developers who wish to work in suburbs.

Building what we call "an archipelago of villages" seems far more reasonable than returning to industrial-age cities and mass transit systems. For the most part, the automobile has left an indelible imprint on our cities, and in our ever-more-dispersed economy, it has become a necessity.

This is not to say that transit of some kind -- perhaps more cost-efficient and flexible dedicated busways, or local shuttles -- can't play a role in serving those who can't or would rather not drive. But short of a crippling fuel shortage or some other catastrophic event, it's highly unlikely that we'll ever see the widespread success of heavily promoted strategies such as dense, transit-oriented developments or the wholesale abandonment of the suburbs.

We can accommodate our need for space and still leave ample room for a flourishing natural environment, as well as for agriculture. By preserving open space and growing in an environmentally friendly manner, we can provide a break from the monotony of concrete and glass and create ideal landscapes for wildlife preservation.

Such notions -- developed before the term "green" existed -- go back to a host of visionaries such as Ebenezer Howard, James Rouse, Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright and Victor Gruen. And they have already been put into practice. Starting in the 1960s in his development of Valencia, north of Los Angeles, Gruen envisioned a "suburbia redeemed" that mixed elements of the urban and the rural.

Valencia's elaborate network of 28 miles of car-free paseos -- paths designed for pedestrians and bicyclists -- helped make the natural environment accessible to residents. Gruen also recognized the commercial appeal of such an environment. A 1992 ad for the development featured a smiling girl saying: "I can be in my classroom one minute and riding my horse the next. I don't know whether I'm a city or country girl."

Similarly, The Woodlands, a sprawling development 27 miles from downtown Houston, is a model for a greener suburbia in a region not much celebrated for its environmental values. The Woodlands name, said its former president, Roger Galatas, was seen not as "just real estate hype" but as part of a plan to allow development without destroying forest lands and natural drainage.

In the Washington area, Reston and Columbia, the latter the brainchild of legendary Maryland developer James Rouse, have become far more than mere bedroom communities; they have become places, or villages, in themselves.

All these places evoke a more environmentally friendly suburbanism, which also can be promoted in areas that did not benefit from the foresight of a Gruen or a Rouse. Town centers, revived older shopping districts, even re-engineered malls can all be part of a greener, more energy-efficient future in a large number of communities. And this process is already well underway.

Dragooning Americans into a dense urban lifestyle that's attractive to only a relatively small minority isn't the best way to address concerns about energy and resource depletion or global warming. Instead, we need to take gradual, sensible, realistic steps to improve the increasingly dispersed places where most of us choose to live and work.

Joel Kotkin is a fellow at Chapman University and author of "The City:

A Global History." Ali Modarres is associate director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University at Los Angeles.

Among many responses to the Kotkin article at Smart Growth America is this one from the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, John Norquist:

In their op-ed article “Hot World? Blame Cities,” Joel Kotkin and Ali Modares quote me as the kind of person calling for a wholesale withdrawal from suburbia in response to global warming. As a former mayor, I admit I value cities and appreciate their energy performance. But many suburbs enjoy strong environmental performance as well, if they are walkable, allow mixed-uses, and particularly if they are served by transit. We in the new urbanist movement work intensely to make suburbs more livable, valuable and sustainable. The authors take down a straw man of their own creation.

They also advance the notion that cities are to blame for major climate problems. Kotkin and Modares admit they don’t have any evidence that says the urban heat island effect is a source of global warming. The “urban heat island” effect is local and is addressed through measures such as green roofs, more parks and less parking lots.

A scientific consensus says rising carbon emissions are raising the earth’s temperatures. Personal cars and trucks account for 20 percent of U.S. energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and these totals are rising as people spread out and drive more miles. The average resident of a walkable, mixed-use section of a suburb like Bethesda drives about 33 percent less than the average person in a half-as-dense, auto-dependent exurb like Woodbridge, according to the study just released by the Urban Land Institute and Smart Growth America entitled Growing Cooler. In Manhattan, the amount of driving is much lower still.

With the U.S. needing to replace 70 million housing units over the next 30 years and top demographer Arthur C. Nelson of Virginia Tech University predicting a fast-rising market for smaller dwellings in compact neighborhoods, there’s a great opportunity to embrace a convenient and effective global warming remedy - in suburbs as well as cities.

John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former mayor of Milwaukee

Transit-oriented development (TOD) proves effective

The point of this article, from Planetizen.com, is that impact estimates and measures provided by the Institute of Transportation Engineers--data which are used to calculate impact fees for developers--are overstated for residential TODs. A more precise measure would mean that "policy makers and planners can 'afford' to give TODs as much as 50% lower fees than traditional developments with no adverse effects on other areas of government budgets caused by traffic impacts."

In other words, banks and other lenders who create deals with developers will have further incentive to create TOD residential developments when their true benefits are reflected in lower impact fees.

Because it's all about The Deal.

   

The Results Are In: Residential TODs Produce 50% Fewer Car Trips

    By G.B. Arrington
(vice president and principal practice leader at PB PlaceMaking.)

You drank the Kool-Aid; you know that if you link transit and land use to create transit-oriented development (TOD) the result is fewer car trips and a host of benefits. From Portland to Miami, Boston to Los Angeles, a record number of TODs are being built in the US. Yet most bankers, developers and regulators are drinking from a different cup. As a result the majority of new development adjacent to transit stops in America has been built in a manner oblivious to the fact that a rail stop is nearby. Therefore many of the hoped for benefits (less time stuck in traffic and lower housing costs to name two) are not being realized from a public investment of nearly $75 billion dollars in rail transit over the past 11 years.

New Research  

New research recently completed for the Transit Cooperative Research Program provides the ammunition to build TODs that take the benefits of transit into account. The study completed by PB PlaceMaking, Dr Robert Cervero, The Urban Land Institute and the Center for Transit Oriented Development looked at how automobile use of residential TODs compared to conventional development.

 

Our research looks at the actual transportation performance of 17 built TOD projects. This was done by counting the passage of motorized vehicles using pneumatic tubes stretched across the driveways of TOD housing projects of varying sizes in four urbanized areas of the country: Philadelphia/N.E. New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; metropolitan Washington D.C.; and the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Suburban Bias   

One motivation for this research was to provide original and reliable data to help seed new professional guidance for building TODs. In part that means an update of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) trip generation and parking generation rates, from which local traffic and parking impacts are typically derived and impact fees are set.

 

Some analysts have identified a serious "suburban bias" in the current ITE rates. Most of the empirical data used to set generation rates are drawn from suburban areas with free and plentiful parking and low-density single land uses. Moreover, since ITE's auto trip reduction factors, to reflect internal trip capture, are based on only a few mixed-use projects in Florida; there has been little or no observation of actual TODs. The end result is that auto trip generation is likely to be overstated for TODs. This can mean that TOD developers end up paying higher impact fees, proffers and exactions than they should since such charges are usually tied to ITE trip rates.

TODs Produce 50% Fewer Trips 

In fact, the results of this research clearly show TOD-housing produces fewer automobile trips in the four urbanized areas. The research confirms the ITE trip generation and parking generation rates over estimate automobile trips for TOD housing.

 

The ITE manual presents “weighted averages” of trip generation that this study showed to be flawed for TODs. The weighted average vehicle trip rates for this study were computed for all 17 projects combined for weekday, AM peak, and PM peak. Over a typical weekday period, the 17 surveyed TOD-housing projects averaged 44% fewer vehicle trips than that estimated by the ITE manual (3.754 versus 6.715 daily trips per unit). The weighted average differentials were even larger during peak periods – 49% lower rates during the A.M. peak and 48% lower rates during the P.M. peak.

 

Peak hour impact fees and traffic impact studies based on the ITE manual could be overstating the congestion-inducing effects of TOD-housing by as much as 50%. One result may also be unnecessary impact mitigation and roadway improvements. This means that policy makers and planners can “afford” to give TODs as much as 50% lower fees than traditional developments with no adverse effects on other areas of government budgets caused by traffic impacts.

New Standards Needed to Reflect Reality 

Existing suburban standards assume virtually everyone drives. It should now be indisputable: TODs perform differently than conventional development. New parking and trip generation rates are necessary to reflect reality. Implementing the findings of this research will allow communities across America to capture the benefits of TOD and reap additional benefits from the substantial investment in transit.

 

New standards could result in wholesale changes in how we address the cost, impact and feasibility of residential development near transit. The implications of new standards are varied:

 

• Local officials and neighborhoods may be more apt to support increases in residential densities near transit if they are shown proof significantly fewer trips result from TODs than in conventional development.

 

• Developers would likely pay lower fees and extractions by as much as 50% to reflect the actual performance of residential TODs. Those savings can be passed on to consumers in the form of lower housing costs.

 

• Parking availability and cost has a major impact on transit use. Transit agencies should plan for increased ridership from lower parking ratios for residential TODs.

 

• Housing affordability is a crisis facing the nation. More affordable TOD housing should be available to the public because of lower development costs and the need for less expensive parking.

 

• More compact environmentally sustainable development can result from less land being consumed for parking. U.S. EPA estimates each on-site parking space in infill locations can reduce the number of new housing units or other uses by 25 percent or more.

 

Implementing these findings should help result in better planned communities, less time stuck in traffic and more affordable housing. Let’s get going.

  Appendix: Snapshot from the study  

All 17 projects studies were within an easy walk of high quality transit with a mix of modes – heavy rail, commuter rail and light rail. Projects ranged in size from 90 to 854 units. The primary use was residential though 6 of the 17 sites had incidental retail uses on the first floor.

 

Washington, D.C.        - 59.9% below ITE A.M. peak rate                              The biggest effects were found in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Among the five mid-to-high rise apartment projects near Metrorail stations outside the District of Columbia, vehicle trip generation rates were more than 60% below that predicted by the ITE manual.

Portland, OR – 49.63% below ITE A.M. peak rate                                 After the Washington area, TOD-housing in the Portland area tended to have the lowest weekday trip generation rates – on average, around 40% below that predicted by the ITE manual. The Portland projects which performed best were those on the fringes of the City Center. Collins Circle on the western edge of downtown produced trip rates 78% below those predicted in the ITE manual.

San Francisco Bay Area – 47.5% below ITE A.M. peak rate                             The San Francisco Bay Area also averaged vehicle trip generation rates substantially below those estimated by the ITE manual. Among the East Bay TOD-housing projects studied, Montelena Homes had the lowest weekday rate: 2.46 trip ends per dwelling unit, 63% below ITE’s rate.

Philadelphia / Newark – 30.53% below ITE A.M. peak rate                  Lastly, the two apartment projects near suburban commuter rail stations outside of Philadelphia and the Newark metropolitan area of northeast New Jersey averaged weekday vehicle trip generation rates that were roughly one-quarter less than that predicted by the ITE manual. This is an appreciable difference given the relatively low-density settings of these projects and that commuter rail offers limited midday and late-night services.

      

 

G.B. Arrington is a vice president and principal practice leader at PB PlaceMaking.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." John Fitzgerald Kennedy

North African American cemetery; image from U.S. Army online

"When public spaces are no longer inviting and people feel uncomfortable going there or even avoid looking as they drive by, the spaces have become uncivil."

Superior's Palace Theater demolished: Image from the Perfect Duluth Day blog.

Via The Political Environment, as posted at The Daily Telegram of Superior, Wisconsin:

COMMENTARY: Palace demolition has rendered downtown Superior flat, lifeless

BY KRIS FISHER

Flat is beautiful…. I think not. I remember going through puberty in the 60s: though my mother tried to convince me otherwise, nobody thought that flat was beautiful. Many years later I bought a building with a flat roof. Uh-oh! There’s nothing worse than a flat roof, I was told. That made me feel deflated. Deflated like a flat tire. Just my luck when I was flat broke anyway. That left me singing the blues — not really singing — because I’d never be able to do that without hitting a flat note.

Webster’s defines “flat” as “lifeless, dull, spiritless; having lost its flavor” (like a flat beer). If that’s the case, why are we spending so much of taxpayers’ money making Superior flat? One year ago, our city leaders spent hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars to flatten the Palace Theater and its neighbors to the north. A few years before that, it was Central High School. Today, we have flat.

Unfortunately, our flat now coincides with a flat real estate market. I personally own a piece of land that would have sold in a nanosecond two years ago; today it sits … and sits. No Sale.

The city of Superior seems to be in the same pickle. It has created building sites – flat sites in a flat market. And the citizens of Superior collectively own these flat parcels. Lifeless, dull places in the middle of our public realm that make us feel that our town has lost its flavor, its spirit. And that affects us all.

James Howard Kunstler, in his award-winning book “Home from Nowhere,” writes about what we are experiencing. “When you degrade the public realm, as we have, you degrade the common good,” he said. And when that happens, you actually damage civic life. When public spaces are no longer inviting and people feel uncomfortable going there or even avoid looking as they drive by, the spaces have become uncivil. His theory is that such spaces impoverish and diminish our communities and our civilization.

Superior doesn’t have the corner on this kind of devastation. Chills went down my spine when I read in Kunstler’s book: “While nothing lasts forever, it was tragic that this magnificent building was destroyed less than a hundred years after it was built…. The town demolished it with a kind of mad glee.” He wasn’t writing about the Palace, but he could have been. Typically, these magnificent buildings are replaced by strip malls, single-story bank and office buildings, laundromats or fast food joints, creating a kind of “anti-place” that makes a once-unique city into Nowhere, USA -- or everywhere USA. Many of us have had the experience of traveling thousands of miles from home only to land in the same mall with the same shops that we drive to in our own neighborhood.

So what is the next step? To ensure that something good happens here. To put a stop to senseless flattening. To reject flat and embrace sharp. How greatly civilization’s vision sharpened when we became aware that the Earth was not flat and we could not travel to its end. Journeys became continuous. Culture is continuous as well; the past is inexorably connected to the present and to the future. When we destroy important remnants of our past, we destroy part of our present culture, we destroy part of our future — leaving our lives with less spirit, leaving our lives flat.

We cannot replace the architectural treasure we lost a year ago. But the Palace Theater has a strong spirit that no wrecking ball can eradicate. So while its physical presence has been demolished, its spirit still resides with the citizens of Superior – perhaps giving us the strength to keep our remaining buildings standing in face of the destructive forces in our city. The next time I hear the flatulent rhetoric of local politicians trying to persuade me that the hasty action against the Palace was wise, I think my stomach will begin to rumble and force me to explode with my own … petulance.

Kris Fisher is president of Friends of Superior.

Racing the snow

The Shoppes at Wyndham Village begin to take shape.

The "paradox of sociability" and "the third place"

Illustration from The Planners Web

I was struck by an answer given to me by a Sprawled Out commenter - one who seems to hold a black belt in indistinct contrariety  - when I asked, probing for something specific with which he disagrees: "Do you feel our sense of community is actually increasing year by year, decade by decade?"

He answered: "In Franklin, yes, actually, and far beyond what I saw in other communities built on the traditional lines to which you advocate a return. Franklin, with all its local associations and citizen committees and commissions is like something out of Tocqueville by comparison."

So I found a specific thing on which we disagree. "Associations and citizen committees and commissions," oh my!

There was a time - - and let's hope there will be a time again - - when members of a community interacted regularly with one another in safe, available public spaces; no need to "join" or "sign up." This interaction - - encouraged by thoughtful physical space as built by pre-sprawl planners - -  nurtured a sense of community and empathy between young and old, rich and poor; the ability (and opportunity) to disagree in a civil manner; mobility for elderly and children, etc. Today's sharply segregated society -- created and enforced by developer-driven "planning," among other blights - -  is effectively and observably smothering all of the above.

Do "associations committees and commissions" constitute community? If so, I say, how sad. Evidently community is reserved for those with the time and inclination to join "associations committees and commissions" - - which mainly consist of like-minded people, by the way, unburdened by certain other responsibilities. It's not enough to just be a fellow fellow human being. And remember, any association, committee or commission is necessarily defined by some manner of exclusion (Darla Hood couldn't join "The He-Man Woman-Haters Club").

Could "associations committees and commissions" help create community? Perhaps.

But our physical, built environment must change. Lack of regular contact in public space has cost us our senses of civility and empathy. The crass talk-radio mentality we endure today - - grown men and women resorting to name-calling and taunting - - is nurtured by the anonymous nature of our interactions. Other people are mere speed bumps in our day (especially while driving, which we do more and more and more as suburbs abandon all pretense of walkability). We go from garage to parking ramp to cubicle and back to garage.

In his book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg does a wonderful job explaining the some of the reasons that regular encounters with people in "third places" - - that is, a public place that is not home and not work - - are of a different character than the relationships created in "associations committees and commissions" and among friends you might choose to invite to your home. The book goes into great detail about how the ability to encounter our fellows in "third places" is crucial to re-building the sense of community that is being lost as we isolate ourselves and limit our life to "the big triangle."

It is a fact of social life that the number, kind, and availability of friends depend upon where one may engage them. If our dependence upon place in this regard is not always understood, it is because our closest and dearest friends may be granted special rights to enter our homes and lives almost at will. Few people, however, can be allowed such privileges if privacy is to be preserved and individuals are to maintain control over their lives and relationships. Involved here is the "paradox of sociability. " Simply stated, one must have protection from those with whom one would enjoy sociable relations. One can't have them bursting into one's home or one's place of work or even have them around when one wishes they were not. The average individual may regularly engage a host of friends only if he or she can be free of them whenever that freedom is necessary or desired. Of course, there must also be freedom to engage friends easily if a generous number of active friendships are to be maintained.

It is this paradox of sociability that encourages a proliferation of third places, of convenient gathering sites, wherever human beings have settled. Only where planning or zoning disallows them do they fail to appear as a natural manifestation of people's need to have readily accessible meeting places that may be visited and departed from at will. Where third places are not provided, the individual's active friendships are greatly diminished, as is the ease with which he or she can make contact with friends. Such is typically the case in the newer automobile suburbs where zoning regulations disallow those kinds of establishments elsewhere appropriated as gathering spots. Within developments containing nothing but homes, residents are confronted with an unhappy choice: they may either open their homes to frequent and unbidden intrusions by friends or they may sharply curtail informal socializing. Usually, and with good reason, they opt for privacy. The home after all, must be kept as a sanctum sanctorum of privacy, rest, and recuperation, and it must be thus preserved for all members of the family.

As many an urbanite and suburbanite has learned, having an extensive network of friends is no guarantee against loneliness. Nor does membership in voluntary associations, the "instant communities" of our mobile society, ensure against social isolation and attendant feelings of boredom and alienation. The network of friends has no unity and no home base. One's many friends may offer no more than sporadic and unreliable accessibility. The voluntary organizations offer true group affiliation and they have a home base, but what they offer is available only at scheduled times. And, in many of them, interest tends to be confined to the mutual problems and concerns of parents without partners, the work of the church, the playing and analyzing of bridge games, and so on. What urban life increasingly fails to provide, and what is so much missed, is convenient and open-ended socializing places where individuals can go without aim or arrangement and be greeted by people who know them and know how to enjoy a little time off.

While we're on the subject of "the third place"; posted previously, but worth repeating, is this excerpt from Oldenburg's preface:

In the absence of an informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become objects of private ownership. Boredom is constant. The American spends much time relieving that boredom by re-decorating their homes. They depend on new wall coverings or furniture arrangements to add zest to their lives. Like the bored and idle rich, they look to new clothing fashions for the same purpose and buy new wardrobes well before the old ones are past service.

A lively round of after-dinner conversation isn't as simple as a walk to the corner cafe (if they can find one) --one has to Host the dinner. The home entertainment industry thrives in the death of informal public life and the demand for new vcr's sound systems, video rental stores, and new cable connections are satisfying the social exiled. This problem in America manifests itself in a sorely deficient informal public life. The structure of shared experience beyond that offered by family, job, and passive consumerism is small and dwindling.

Is this some recent phenomena? Journalist Max Lerner is quoted in Oldenburg's book:

A number of recent American writings indicate that the nostalgia for the small town need not be constructed as directed toward the town itself: it is rather a "quest for community" (as Robert Nisbet puts it)--a nostalgia for a compassable and integral living unit. The critical question is not whether the small town can be rehabilitated in the image of its earlier strength and growth --- for clearly it cannot---but whether American life will be able to evolve any other integral community to replace it. This is what I call the problem of place in America, and unless it is somehow resolved, American personality will continue to be quiet and unfulfilled.

Lerner wrote that in 1957! He has certainly been proven a prophet.

Goodbye, middle class

Paul Krugman speaks at Alverno's Pittman Theater at 7 p.m. Wednesday, an event sponsored by Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Middle class is eroding, author says

Columnist Krugman will speak tonight at Alverno

By JOHN SCHMID
[email protected]

Posted: Nov. 6, 2007

The latest book by economist and columnist Paul Krugman begins with a wistful look at life in post-World War II middle-class America.

"Like the rest of my generation, I took the America I grew up in for granted," Krugman writes in "The Conscience of a Liberal," (W. W. Norton) published last month.

Krugman, whose book tour brings him tonight to Alverno College, is hardly the first writer to lament the erosion of middle-class stability - or, as Krugman calls it, "a paradise lost, an exceptional period in our nation's history."

What's most striking is that Krugman downplays the role of global forces in reshaping American society. Instead of looking to China and India or even the Internet for causes of economic change, Krugman analyzes broad shifts in American politics. In particular, he traces the rise of "movement conservatives," which began in the 1960s and culminated with the presidency of George W. Bush.

He argues that the policies of the movement are conservative, as typified by Bush's second-term attempts to privatize Social Security and undo the centerpiece of the New Deal, and have widened American social inequalities to an extent not seen since the first half of the last century.

"Every advanced country is facing the same global economy," Krugman said in a telephone interview. "The French, the Canadians. But they haven't seen the same erosion of the middle class that we have. They haven't seen the emergence of the super elite."

In that sense, Krugman's latest book contrasts with the 2005 bestseller, "The World is Flat" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by fellow New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman dwells on "flatteners" - the forces that drive globalization, which emanate just as often from China and India as they do from Silicon Valley.

Some of Krugman's findings are counterintuitive in a nation that prides itself on social mobility and self-made entrepreneurs like the heroes of Horatio Alger stories. Citing figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, Krugman notes that high-scoring students from low-income families are less likely to finish college than low-scoring students from high-income families.

The reasons, Krugman said, include income inequalities and the nation's lack of health coverage. Mobility is highest in the Scandinavian countries, and lower in the U.S. than in France and Canada, he finds.

"It's clear that Horatio Alger has moved to Finland," Krugman said.

Economic democracy

The use of the word "liberal" in the title adds to the book's partisan and provocative tone at a time when the 2008 presidential race is well under way.

Asked if he feels that the book will prompt a backlash from conservatives, Krugman said that the rise and fall of the middle class puts him squarely in the mainstream.

"Look at where public opinion is on issues," Krugman said. "The things I'm talking about in this book address the concerns of most Americans. It's really the small and dwindling minority that takes the other side."

Asked to define a "liberal," he said: "It means believing that democracy requires a bit of economic democracy, in a society without great extremes, and with a safety net that protects everybody from the worst."

Krugman was born in 1953 and grew up on Long Island. Unlike many columnists, he's an academic, at Princeton University, and an economist who won the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to an outstanding economist under 40.

Like most who lead the nation's economic-policy debate, Krugman concedes that he's not an expert on the industrial Midwest - even though the issues in the Midwest differ from the East and West Coasts.

But the squeeze on the middle class, he said, is essential to the churn and displacement in an industrial economy like the Midwest. And one of the most telling signs of middle-class erosion, he argues, is health coverage. Much of his book deals with health policies.

"You can safely say that if you don't have health insurance, you're not middle class." He ticks of a catalog of statistics: 15% are totally uninsured; another 25% are severely underinsured. And those numbers are increasing, not decreasing.

"There's a slow motion race to the bottom on employer-based coverage," he said. "We are heading for a large part of the population that will not be middle class by any reasonable definition."

Paul Krugman speaks at Alverno's Pittman Theater at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The event is sponsored by Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops.