Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Didn't see it coming? "The highest standard of living... for a country of our size."

We began having to use qualifiers for America's economic health as far back as this exchange between Representative Bernie Sanders and Alan Greenspan - back in 2003:

REP. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Mr. Greenspan, I have long been concerned that you are way out of touch with the needs of the middle class and working families of our country, that you see your major function in your position as the need to represent the wealthy and large corporations.

And I must tell you that your testimony today only confirms all of my suspicions, and I urge you -- and I mean this seriously, because you're an honest person, I think you just don't know what's going on in the real world -- and I would urge you come with me to Vermont, meet real people. The country club and the cocktail parties are not real America. The millionaires and billionaires are the exception to the rule.

(AFP/Stephen Jaffe)

You talk about an improving economy while we have lost 3 million private sector jobs in the last two years, long-term unemployment is more than tripled, unemployment is higher than it's been since 1994.

We have a $4 trillion national debt, 1.4 million Americans have lost their health insurance, millions of seniors can't afford prescription drugs, middle-class families can't send their kids to college because they don't have the money to do that, bankruptcy cases have increased by a record-breaking 23 percent, business investment is at its lowest level in more than 50 years, CEOs make more than 500 times of what their workers make, the middle class is shrinking, we have the greatest gap between the rich and the poor of any industrialized nation, and this is an economy that is improving.

I'd hate to see what would happen if our economy was sinking.

Now, today you may not have known this -- I suspect that you don't -- but you have insulted tens of millions of American workers.

You have defended over the years, among other things, the abolition of the minimum wage -- one of your policies -- and giving huge tax breaks to billionaires.

But today you have reached a new low, I think, by suggesting that manufacturing in America doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where the product is produced. We've lost 2 million manufacturing jobs in the last two years alone; 10 percent of our work force. Wal-Mart has replaced General Motors as the major employer in America, paying people starvation wages rather than living wages, and all of that does not matter to you -- doesn't matter.

If it's produced in China where workers are making 30 cents an hour, or produced in Vermont where workers can make 20 bucks an hour, it doesn't matter. You have told the American people that you support a trade policy which is selling them out, only working for the CEOs who can take our plants to China, Mexico and India.

You insulted Mr. Castle. Mr. Castle, a few moments ago -- a good Republican -- told you that we're seeing not only the decline of manufacturing jobs, but white-collar information technology jobs.

Forrester Research says that over the next 15 years, 3.3 million U.S. service industry jobs and $136 billion in wages will move offshore to India, Russia, China and the Philippines.

Does any of this matter to you? Do you give one whit of concern for the middle class and working families of this country? That's my question.

ALAN GREENSPAN: Congressman, we have the highest standard of living in the world.

SANDERS: No, we do not. You go to Scandinavia, and you will find that people have a much higher standard of living, in terms of education, health care and decent paying jobs. Wrong, Mister.

GREENSPAN: May I answer your question?

SANDERS: You sure may.

GREENSPAN: Thank you. For a major industrial country, we have created the most advanced technologies, the highest standard of living for a country of our size.

Published on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

True: The only more populous countries than America are China and India, and after us come Indonesia and Brazil. (Deep Economy, page 104). Not so great.

See entire exchange in extended

"Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

The title is an old bylaw in President Bush's new neighborhood. However, they eliminated that racist rule way back in.... 2000.

Almost got it straight before the turn of the 21st century.

(See neighborhood covenant document here.)

New crisis means new rules for community development

 As giant chains close locations en masse (and almost arbitrarily), and mall developers declare bankruptcy, we're reminded once again why locally-owned, locally supported businesses are important.

Tumbleweeds Restaurants were "back on the growth track" a couple years ago. Now the Wisconsin locations - including the Franklin location, which seemed to be popular - have abruptly closed. Did it matter that business was good at the Franklin location? Not a whit to a franchise; the Excel spread sheet tells the corporate office what to close without regard to local conditions.

Woe be to the city that places too much trust on big chain restaurants and retailers without encouraging a "deep economy" of locally owned businesses. This will be something I'll attempt to emphasize for as long as they let me serve on the Economic Development Commission - - you'll see more on the topic here in coming weeks, as my first meeting with the Commission (which I will write about in the very near future) did not seem to address that issue.

Meanwhile, we await the tenant announcements for Shoppes at Wyndham Village (aka The Target Center); will there be incentives for local businesses, or is it a Starbucks-only zone?

New crisis, in commercial real estate, looms - Economy in Turmoil- msnbc.com

A community Arts Center in the era of big screen TV's and backyard Rainbow playsets?

 

What used to be a common community amenity is now a rare novelty. Here in Franklin, the idea of an arts center is met with grumpy indignation.

My goodness - the very idea that public money be used for a public amenity in the era of the bigscreen TV and Rainbow playsets ....

'A Christmas Carol' breaks in new Oconomowoc Arts Center tonight - JSOnline

Columnist asserts the right to pick our noses vigorously and often

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel conservative columnist Patrick McIlheran found a chart created by the Federal Highway Administration that shows that Americans travel more miles by vehicle with every passing year, prompting deployment of his trademark folksy "Uh, no"'s and "Um, no"'s as he explains that we should respond to this steady increase with equally steady increases in road building and widening.

So, if you should happen to chart the nosepicking incidents of your four-year-old and note an upward trend, McIlhernan-logic states, be sure to take that as a sign that you should do everything you can to facilitate more and easier nose-picking into the future.

For sheer arrogance, you can hardly beat a paragraph like this:

What that chart's 70-year climb really shows, then, is the democratization of speed and mobility. As Americans get richer, they gain the power to decide where to go and when. Whether the age of gas is over is debatable. Whether people will happily surrender that power, however, seems unlikely. I wouldn't bet on this being the end of the road.

Perhaps if Mr. McIlheran tied a string around his finger it would remind him that there is a war on right now that is directly related to a foreign policy tied intrinsically to the attitude expressed above. Is it worth getting to Wal-Mart quicker?

Time to change that attitude. Or go on picking our noses, vigorously and often.

Cudahy rejects Wal-Mart Supercenter proposal - JSOnline

No more rubber stamps for the retail giant?

Cudahy rejects Wal-Mart Supercenter proposal - JSOnline:

By Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 3, 2008 11:08 a.m.

A Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for Cudahy ran into a big roadblock Tuesday night when the Common Council voted against approving the framework for the project's development agreement.

Council members rejected a proposed "memorandum of understanding" between the city and developer Continental Properties Co.

Approving the memorandum would pave the way for a more detailed development agreement with Continental, which wants to build the Cudahy Station retail development on 26 acres, south of E. Layton Ave., between S. Nicholson Ave. and Sweet Applewood Lane. The development would be anchored by the 134,000-square-foot Supercenter, a combined supermarket and discount store.

The project isn't necessarily dead as a result of the vote. But, as the delays pile up, "the less likely it is to happen," said Steve Wagner, Continental's vice president for retail leasing.

"We're evaluating all of our options," Wagner said today. A Wal-Mart executive couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

Ald. Mary Schissel said she voted against the memorandum because her constituents told her they didn't want a Wal-Mart, partly due to objections they had over the retailer's wages.

"They didn't see it as an improvement," she said.

Continental's original plan included development of an indoor soccer training academy operated by the Milwaukee Wave soccer team. But plans for the soccer facility have been delayed, with Continental seeking to begin construction next summer on the Supercenter.

The project site is home to the failed Iceport indoor skating complex.

The Town That Neil Young Built

This comes via Strange Maps:

332 - The Town That Neil Young Built:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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