Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Stimulus to Nowhere?

Former Milwaukee mayor and current President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism John Norquist has a bone to pick with Barack Obama:

Can we avoid the upcoming Economic Recovery Program from being a Stimulus to Nowhere?

When President-Elect Barack Obama announced he was planning the largest new investment in national infrastructure since “the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s,” he probably didn’t mean that the U.S. should literally start building highways as if it’s the 1950s all over again.

But that’s the message too many governors and state DOT secretaries seem to have heard. Ever since the President-Elect’s team put out the call for “ready to go” infrastructure projects, they have been busy dusting off familiar plans for wider highways and larger roads. The American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials has joined them, touting 5000 shovel-ready projects, most designed to put more cars on highways, boosting our carbon emissions and increasing our dependence on fossil fuels.

(Read the rest at Congress for the New Urbanism)

See also: I Voted for Obama for Change We Can Believe In, Not to Give State DOTs $980 Million Dollars to Build New Highways

Driving miles are dramatically down: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

The AP reports that driving in America has undergone its most dramatic decline in history, as Americans drove 100 billion fewer miles during the 12-month period ending October 2008 compared with the prior year.

“The fact that the trend persists even as gas prices are dropping,” said Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, “confirms that America’s travel habits are fundamentally changing.”

More importantly: The fact that the trend persists tells you that Americans WILL change their habits when presented with a better option.

Mass Transit is homeland security - - lower oil dependence may mean Dick Cheney's post-political career is a bit leaner, but it'll also means we rely less on the countries that comprise OPEC. Pressure will be kept on Barack Obama to deliver via his infrastructure spending plan.

This may baffle the right wing, who characterized (absolutely legitimate) criticism of G. W. Bush as "Bush derangement syndrome," but Obama's supporters will keep pressing him on specific issues and will feel free to publicly disagree with him along the way. This is how Change works.

In other words: If Obama thinks we should spend $850 billion on asphalt as usual, I'll be at the head of the line expressing my displeasure.

The same goes for right here in Franklin. Local municipalities have to do their part to create communities that can be navigated with OR without a vehicle. Still, over and over again we see one-stop developments go up that do little more than provide parking (yes, I'm talking about the downward-trending - - Cousin's Subs! - -  Shoppes at Wyndham Village). Even our elaborate and overbuilt "Law Enforcement Center" embarrassingly adheares to that principle.

When your civic buildings are that cynical, it's hard to make improvements in the surrounding community.

Wal-Mart finally caves in to Santa Claus

'Twas the settlement before Christmas.

Al Norman: Wal-Mart Santa Settles 63 Wage & Hour Lawsuits.

Fountains of Franklin tenant announced: Must be upscale, because the word "holistic" is used in its promotion

It's not a Dairy Queen or Cousin's Subs.

Kidz Unplugged, which bills itself as "one-stop shopping for the mind, body and spirit of our children" ("This center will serve as the first exclusive children’s holistic center in the community focusing on natural enrichment activities and personal care needs of children"), has sent a mailer announcing its relocation from the Franklin Business Park ("not the best fit for this type of business," according to the mailer) to Fountains of Franklin.

The new facility will be 5,700 square feet, which will be, according to the mailer, the largest kid's salon and spa in the country. Kidz Unplugged will be closing their current location on December 27th.

Sad to say, given the hostile, vehicle-choked, disconnected environment in which they must navigate, today's suburban children evidently do require "enrichment activities" beyond those that me and my snot-nosed buddies self-generated back in the early '70s - - when our world was much, much bigger and a three-speed Huffy with a banana seat gave you the keys to the kingdom.

I'm trying to imagine going over to Kirkie Kerschlager's house with my friend Bob Blaskowski only to have his mom say, "Kirkie can't play slo-mo Packer goal line football today; we have a spa appointment."

Other natural enrichment activities I remember:

- Playing marathon "ghetto-league" baseball games (so named by a Little League coach: "And don't go getting hurt before our 'real' game playing your little 'ghetto-league' ball...").

- Catching bullheads and carp down at the Wisconsin River.

- Exploring the "mud flats" when the Wisconsin River was drawn down (Found: 34 bikes, a rusted-over revolver, and a 4 cars).

- Jumping bikes with homemade ramps (I have the scar to prove it).

- Day-long excursions to the city pool, then up the hill to grandma's for peanut butter cookies and card games.

- Climbing the pipes at Wausau Concrete (with the big "WausaW Concrete" sign).

- Dumpster-diving behind the arcade supply shop for 45's (speaking of "natural enrichment," I remember finding the Knack's "My Sharona" with the scandalous sleeve photo and being strangely affected. My mom had to have a talk with me when she saw that particular item).

-The "Cluster Mystery Ride": Going down the sledding hill - which had huge "bumps" at the bottom created by the snowplow - in a closed refrigerator box with four other kids. (I have a scar from that one as well.)

- Walking down to Stop-&-Go ("Stop-&-Hock") to look at comics and buy Wacky Packages ("Fright Guard"! Genius).

- Biking to the Wausau News Agency to look at exotic magazines (meaning monsters and sci-fi, not skin and sin).

- Pressing up against the viewing window at WRIG-AM radio and watching the DJ spin records and read the news, sometimes leaving with AP tearsheets to later read aloud from my basement "studio."

- Trying even the weird flavors at Mother's Ice Cream.

- Building yet another fort in the clump of trees we called The North Woods.

Etc.

Ah, the days of free natural enrichment.

Couldn't even get a Jimmy Johns?

Franklin Today reports that, after a long bout of silence, the first announced tenant at Shoppes at Wyndham Village is... Cousin's Subs.

That bar sure lowered, didn't it?

The lesson here is: Build a strip mall, get strip mall shops. Or "shoppes," as the case may be.

Destroying from within: The "ironic appointment" in Franklin UPDATE

The strange and cynical Diane Baranowski nomination ("UNDERGROUND PARKING - Are you NUTS? A "GREEN" ROOF - same!") for a seat on the much-hobbled Environmental Commission was voted down 4-2 by the Common Council.

(And I mean the nomination is strange and cynical; I don't know Ms. Baranowski.)

The vote, worth remembering:

AGAINST:
Steve Olson
Kristen Wilhelm
Steve Taylor
Lyle Sohns (aldermanic rep on the EC)

FOR:
Ken Skowronski
Tim Solomon

Destroying from within: The "ironic appointment" in Franklin

I knew the name was familiar; it took only a moment or two to find out why.

On the Common Council agenda for tonight, the mayor has nominated one Diane Baranowski for a seat on the much-hobbled Environmental Commission.

A nomination, it appears, executed in the long tradition of destroying from within those institutions deemed unnecessary or averse to Those Who Matter (in this case, read: developers).

The so-called "ironic appointment."

Ronald Reagan's handlers worried that if it named competent people to run "objectionable" agencies, its actions might be interpreted by Those Who Matter as sanctioning the regulatory enterprise. That's how the neophyte Colorado state legislator Anne Gorsuch was put in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. And she gutted it from within.

George W. Bush nominates UN denouncer John Bolton in 2005 as our ambassador to the UN.

Bush's Department of Labor is run by self-admitted haters of labor. They go so far as to agree to give Wal-Mart a fifteen-day notice before "investigating" it for any possible child labor violations.

And here in Franklin, the Common Council is being asked to approve the appointment of a woman who wrote the note below - cc'ed to the mayor - to blogger Greg Kowalski (who has an entry about the situation as well) while he was attempting to get even cosmetic improvements made to the Target Store in the Parking Lots Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

Ms. Baranowski has every right to her opinion, and I'm sure she is well-intentioned. However, do the sentiments below sound like those of a person who is anxious to help Franklin remain vigilant regarding environmental impacts? Does this sound like the attitude of a person who is busy reading whatever she can on "green" issues, both pro and con? Think she'll be anxious to head up a subcommittee to look into alternate parking configurations or green roofs (to quote Ms. Baranowski: "UNDERGROUND PARKING - Are you NUTS? A "GREEN" ROOF - same!")?

No. It sounds like someone who is on Mark Carstensen's and Target Corporate's Christmas card list. And the appointment smells to high heaven like a concession to one or both of those entities.

I serve on the relatively low-impact Economic Development Commission, having been nominated for the position by Mayor Taylor; Plan Commission was off-limits to me, evidently. Both myself and all the citizen commissions are belittled by a manuever this cynical. 

Will someone read the letter below into the record before the council votes?

----- Original Message -----

From: Diane Baranowski
To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 3:52 PM

Subject: Petition

I apologize for the previous signatures on the on-line petition. Later in this email, I will explain how that happened.

 

I do NOT endorse this protest petition or it's position statement in any way, shape or form. I'd be curious to know where you live or what your REAL motive might be, despite the named one. Frankly, if you lived in Wyndham Hills, I could see that the "demands" that you have made are more for your own self interest than anything else. 

 

Honestly, it's people like you and others who sign your petition who essentially force GOOD developers to look elsewhere without even CONSIDERING a possible site in Franklin. They're not going to jump through your suggested ridiculous hoops! UNDERGROUND PARKING - Are you NUTS? A "GREEN" ROOF - same! Remember that these companies could have brought employment opportunities with them if they had been welcomed to Franklin. 

 

Is it possible that with this nonsense, you're attempting to make a "name" for yourself so that when your want to run for public office, you'll be a known entity? Well, guess what? Most any constituency will know by then that your ideas are foolish!

 

Get off of this "rant" of yours regarding Target and help to BRING them and other good developments TO Franklin. This city needs commercial development. Are you (or your parents) and whomever your signers are, so happy with their tax bills that they can afford to join you as you push Target out? From this point forward, developers will simply skip Franklin on their lists of possible building sites if you pull this off - LOL!

 

Not surprisingly, your signature process is misleading. The request to sign the petition includes 2 little carrots or whatever they're called. These symbols seem to indicate that on the next page, one could actually sign when you are actually signing on the first page. Shame on you! I personally do not want my name on any petition of yours. If I learn that my signature is being used, despite my intention not to have it appear, there will be hell to pay!

 

By the way, petitions signed "anonymous" would not be proper and certainly would not be considered as a valid signature by ANYONE. What are you going to do when you present this petition? Would you indicate that you got a certain number of signatures and not disclose that some of them were signed "anonymous"? I'm going to keep you honest in this petition drive. Given your whole process, I'm going to make sure that all signatures are proper. I figure that Target officials will want to see them. I WANT Target here and I know that Mark Carstensen will do an amazing job of developing the site at HWY 100 and Drexel!

 

I'm going to the Target corporate website right now and hope that they have a "contact us" option that I can use. I've got a lot to say to them.   

Wal-Mart's thrifty charity work vs. genuine community outreach

Here's something interesting I learned in the book Deep Economy: The three heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune are among the ten richest people on the earth, worth $90 billion. According to Fortune magazine, the city of Bentonville, Arkansas, where their family began to make their fortunes, home of Wal-Mart, runs a budget deficit and can't afford a new sewage treatment plant.

I guess it should be no surprise, then, to read (via Fred Keller's BULLSEYE blog) that Franklin's Wal-Mart and Sam's Club combined to donate a whopping $8,000 $5,000 to various Franklin institutions and charities. {Sharp-eyed reader Scott Thinnes called my attention to some awkward language in the NOW story below; I actually erroniously added the TOTAL of two grants to the two amounts that comprised it.)

From FranklinNOW.com:

On Friday, December 5th, 2008, the City of Franklin received a donation of $3,000 from Sam's Club/Walmart. A grant of $2,000 to the Franklin Public Library towards replacement of the children's computers in the children's library area was received by Barbara Roark, Franklin Public Library Director.

A second grant of $1,000 was received by City of Franklin Police Chief, Rick Oliva, who stated that the grant would be used for public programs such as National Night Out and Bicycle Safety programs.

Sam's Club/Walmart finished the grants presentation at the Franklin Sam's Club location with a $2,000 grant to the Salvation Army to be used for holiday donations to over 400 families.

As I noted in the BULLSEYE comment section: Color me unimpressed. $5,000? Not great, I'm afraid. Wal-Mart can find 8k under their fingernails at the end of a day. You do better if you're a politician with a blog: Wal-Mart gave Mary Lazich $1,000, and got for their money, among other favors, an ostensibly Lazich-authored blog entitled "Wal-Mart to the Rescue"(!)

Bottom line: 5k is certainly not compensation for the corporate socialism Wal-Mart extracts from the local and federal government.

And, to my friend Bryan Maersch (now blogging here) who commented: ""Right or Wrong, Walmart is a big part of our economy," I have to say just this:

Right or wrong? I don't care how "big" you are; I believe we should expect RIGHT in all cases.

Let's contrast Wal-Mart's, er, thriftyness with the generosity of Dave Hahn of the Greenfield Outback Steak House. He was honored last night by the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce as Business of the Year.

This is what Mr. Hahn does: Each year, he chooses ten charities and community groups to host a fundraiser. The fundraiser costs are set by the charity or organization, and what they collect they get to keep, free and clear. This year's beneficiaries were Greenfield Friends of Music, Greenfield Education Association, Wisconsin String Teachers, Downs Syndrome Association, National Campaign for Muscular Dystrophy/Friedrich Ataxia, and local churches.

Outback Steak House is a chain, but Dave Hahn is a local franchisee who recognizes his community's needs and takes positive, ongoing, focused action. His kind of giving takes an appreciable bite from his personal bottom line, but creates the kind of goodwill that gets people like me (and everyone I talk to for the next month or so) over to his restaurant for a dinner or two, or three.

As for Wal-Mart; they'll do fine without me.

"People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds."

I've never been a huge fan of the columnist David Brooks (he once said Barack Obama was not an "Applebee's salad bar kind of guy," though Applebee's does not have a salad bar; so much for being in touch with the common man.)

I have to agree with his current column, however. It may be shocking to conservatives who expect Obama supporters to simply agree with each and every policy decision made by the President-elect, but getting the guy elected is only the beginning of the job. When he announced his intention to address the nation's crumbling infrastructure with an enormous building program, those of us who care about smart planning and traditional neighborhood development immediately started beating the drum to make sure this initiative is properly channeled; we certainly don't need more of the same. 

After all:

If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers.

One terrific suggestion from the Washington Post: Invest in Mass Transit:

NYTimes.com:

This Old House

By DAVID BROOKS

The 1980s and 1990s made up the era of the great dispersal. Forty-three million people moved every year, and basically they moved outward — from inner-ring suburbs to far-flung exurbs on the metro fringe. For example, the population of metropolitan Pittsburgh declined by 8 percent in those years, but the developed land area of the Pittsburgh area sprawled outward by 43 percent.

If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers.

People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds. So in the past years there has been a new trend. Meeting places are popping up across the suburban landscape.

There are restaurant and entertainment zones, mixed-use streetscape malls, suburban theater districts, farmers’ markets and concert halls. In addition, downtown areas in places like Charlotte and Dallas are reviving as many people move back into the city in search of human contact. Joel Kotkin, the author of “The New Geography,” calls this clustering phenomenon the New Localism.

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns. It would be great if Obama’s spending, instead of just dissolving into the maw of construction, would actually encourage the clustering and leave a legacy that would be visible and beloved 50 years from now.

To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points. The stimulus plan could build charter schools, pre-K centers, national service centers and other such programs around new civic hubs.

This kind of stimulus would be consistent with Obama’s campaign, which was all about bringing Americans together in new ways. It would help maintain the social capital that’s about to be decimated by the economic downturn.

But alas, there’s no evidence so far that the Obama infrastructure plan is attached to any larger social vision. In fact, there is a real danger that the plan will retard innovation and entrench the past.

In a stimulus plan, the first job is to get money out the door quickly. That means you avoid anything that might require planning and creativity. You avoid anything that might require careful implementation or novel approaches. The quickest thing to do is simply throw money at things that already exist.

Sure enough, the Obama stimulus plan, at least as it has been sketched out so far, is notable for its lack of creativity. Obama wants to put more computers in classrooms, an old idea with dubious educational merit. He also proposes a series of ideas that are good but not exactly transformational: refurbishing the existing power grid; fixing the oldest roads and bridges; repairing schools; and renovating existing government buildings to make them more energy efficient.

This is the federal version of “This Old House.” And this is before the stimulus money gets diverted, as it inevitably will, to refurbish old companies. The auto bailout could eventually swallow $125 billion. After that, it could be the airlines and so on.

It’s also before the spending drought that is bound to follow the spending binge. Because we’re going to be spending $1 trillion now on existing structures and fading industries, there will be less or nothing in 2010 or 2011 for innovative transport systems, innovative social programs or anything else.

Before the recession hit, we were enjoying a period of urban and suburban innovation. We could have been on the verge of a transportation revolution. It looks as if the Obama infrastructure plan may freeze that change, not fuel it.

And not to get all Rod McKuen on you or anything, but the larger point is this: Social change has a natural rhythm. The season of prosperity gives way to the season of economic scarcity, and out of the winter of recession, new growth has room to emerge. A stimulus package may be necessary, but unless designed with care, its main effect will be to prop up the drying husks of the fall.

Students play SimStateStreet to learn city planning principles

A few years back while doing a consulting gig for the city of Racine, I proposed and helped implement an event called SimCity Racine wherein, using a custom-designed SimCity template, we had various manufacturing, education, administrative, and commercial city leaders play the game to learn community development collaboration and a bit of cross-disipline empathy (i.e. we made each person responsible for a facet of SimRacine that was opposite of their real-world position). It was a huge success - - games and online simulations are excellent tools.

I've often thought about proposing a SimFranklin activity ...

Via JSOnline:

Students are game for controlling State St.

UW researchers' computer program teaches urban planning

By Stanley A. Miller II of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 7, 2008

Games thrust players into many roles: soldier, sorcerer, singer, sports star&ensp.&ensp.&ensp. 

And recently, a computer game designed by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers challenged some Riverside University High School students to reshape State St. in Madison by taking on the role of an urban planner.

There are no mighty armies or mystical powers in this game to impose policy and order - just tools for gathering data, changing neighborhood zoning and communicating with colleagues.

And there were no cheat codes if players got stuck. Students turned to "virtual mentors" - researchers in Madison reachable only through an instant-messaging program - to answer questions as they progressed through the challenge.

"I haven't tried a game like this before, but I chat online a lot," Maria Fregoso, a Riverside sophomore, said as she tackled the beginning stages of the game the first day. "I volunteered because I thought this would be a good experience for me."

About a dozen students tried out UW's latest version of the Urban Science game late last month - "the cream of the crop, as well as some students who could use this to move forward," said Chris Levas, an engineering and science teacher at Riverside who selected the group.

The game was run after school through Riverside's community learning center and coordinated by Milwaukee Recreation, which might introduce it to other centers, according to Brian Hoffer, a spokesman for the department.

Remote experiment

Urban Science has evolved substantially since it was developed in 2004, according to Elizabeth Bagley, a graduate student in UW's Epistemic Games Research Group who now is in charge of the project. She noted that this latest trial was to test how well the game can be run remotely, which is important if the experience is to be accessible to as many students as possible.

The students took on the task professionally and quickly embraced the online chat feature, firing off questions to Bagley's colleagues as she kept vigil over them in the Riverside computer lab.

After setting up his personal profile on the game's Web portal, where all the action takes place, sophomore Jorge Montiel scrutinized online photos and historical information to gather background on Madison's popular downtown strip.

Christian Medina, who was sitting next to him, said Urban Science was easy to get into and understand.

"It's fun because we are talking to people," he said.

As urban designers, the students had to consider issues such as affordable housing, parking, ecological issues and crime, while balancing the desires of special interest groups such as businesses, a cultural preservation organization and other community advocates.

"There are tradeoffs and consequences, and these are things they need to deal with as a planner," Bagley said. "They are learning how to really facilitate compromises because there are stakeholders whose goals don't overlap."

The game also teaches teamwork, collaboration and diplomacy while "connecting young people with their environment," Bagley said.

"They are seeing their city as a system," Bagley said. "Cities are not built by people behind closed doors."

Browser-friendly update

In the latest version of the game, students used a Web-based program called iPlan that doesn't require software to be installed on a computer. The system let them view a map of the area they had to redesign, rezone different parts, and view the results by logging into a Web portal.

Players also used in-game e-mail in which they received messages from a fictitious boss who gave them assignments, as well as a computer-controlled community facilitator who helped them navigate the neighborhood interest groups.

"In the past, we had planning consultants in the room," Bagley said. "One of the reasons we are making this switch is because it is not feasible that multiple classrooms all over the world have a four-students-to-one instructor ratio."

Over four days, the students researched and discussed the best strategies for balancing business issues such as adding parking with environmental concerns such as the desire for green space.

Hoffer, the Milwaukee Recreation spokesman, said the department wants to offer the game at other community learning centers in the future, but he isn't sure when that might happen.

"We all love the experience and what it means to the kids," Hoffer said. "But it boils down to funding."

The UW researchers noted that they gathered valuable information during the trial at Riverside and are applying for more grants to help continue their work - money that could bring Urban Science back to town.

"One of the things I'm really impressed with is their intense focus," Bagley said on the last day of the game as things were winding down and the students were close to submitting their proposals. "It's pretty quiet in here, and what that shows is this game is very engaging. They really have bought into this 'company' and this mission."

She also stressed that the players take the game seriously because they are treated like adults, not students.

Betsy Flores, a sophomore, said on the final day that although the game was challenging at first, she learned a lot, especially how changing the zoning of an area can affect the environment.

"I liked the map part the most and moving things around," Flores said. "People really like parks, and restaurants... can bring a lot of trash."