Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

"People tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American people by people who make a living off doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Unfortunately, this incredibly tragic story threatens to have a local angle for other communities given the over-the-top tone of many community blogs.

On a national and local level, I am sickened by attention-starved persons whose paycheck and/or self worth is derived from creating a spectacle via over-the-top rhetoric and name-calling. They may claim, "Hey, this is just like professional wrestling; it's entertainment and I'm just playing a character!" -- but they -- we -- need to be aware that our words and images are available to diseased minds who are waiting for reinforcement.  

Left or right; conservative or liberal -- there are consequences to the tone of rhetoric we deploy. Being a cartoon character may get you mic or camera time and sell some books, but you're also pouring gasoline on a fire.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

"It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. That's the sad thing about what's going on in America. Pretty soon we're not going to be able to find reasonable decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office.

"People tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American people by people who make a living off doing that. That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

-- Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking Saturday on the shooting in Arizona that claimed at least six lives and left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition

Next American City: Little to Celebrate

ABOVE: Celebration’s small town AMC cinema. Credit: flickr user bobafred

Celebration, Florida just might represent everything that used to be right with America, and everything that is currently wrong with America. Celebration, for those unaware, is a master planned community that was built by the Disney Corporation, and incorporates various Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) features with a touch of Disney magic. Recently, though, Bad Things have been afoot in Celebration—murder, suicide, and foreclosure. Could real city problems be invading this fake city? What would that mean?

Read the rest at: Next American City » Columns » Little to Celebrate

$5 for a gallon of gas in '12; luckily, we'll have the train alternative... oh, wait ...

The incoming governor of Wisconsin chose ideology and bald-faced patronage over common long-term fiscal sense.

No train for us. The citizens of Wisconsin will be paying Scott Walker's benefactors in the asphalt spreading business for years and years to come. 

Bonus points: Did you know asphalt uses petroleum?

Read the rest at: $5 for a gallon of gasoline in 2012 - Dec. 27, 2010

... And we wonder why my community seems stuck in reverse

Prepared a nifty little presentation on Digital Visualization for city planning and development at the request of Franklin's  (deep breath) "Mayoral Ad Hoc Development Process Review Committee."

Spousal negotiation to free up time for prep and presentation/discussion? CHECK.

Projector? CHECK.

Quick tutorial by city engineer on how not to break the projector's $400 bulb? CHECK.

PowerPoint? CHECK.

Adapter for Mac? CHECK.

Cool slides with bullet points and stuff? CHECK.

Handouts? CHECK.

 

Committee Quorum? NOPE.

 

In the age of cel phones, grown adults cannot call to say they won't be able to attend a meeting. So much for ambitious notions, proactive planning, grand plans and out-of-the-box thinking in Franklin, WI.

Pack it up; go home.

The diaper on the curb: This is the new community?

ABOVE: Somebody else's business.

So, I was out on my run yesterday -- beautiful weather -- and once again saw my old friend the discarded diaper.

Way back on October 27th we were buffeted by windstorms. It just so happened that these days-long winds occurred during trash collection day on a certain street in Franklin, and a garbage can disgorged a tightly wrapped disposable diaper. I saw it on the curb as I ran my route a day or two after the storms.

And then I saw it again a few days after that.

Three days later -- still there. 

A week later; hadn't budged. (Evidently a hefty, er, load.)

I took the pictures above and below today, November 8th; that's 12 days after the windstorm. At least two trash collection days have come and gone, meaning the homeowners on either side of this discarded diaper looked right at it as they placed their garbage cans by the curb -- and did nothing.

They backed out of their driveways and looked at it -- and did nothing.

What if a neighborhood kid grabs it and gets curious? Didn't seem to occur to anyone living there.

 
ABOVE: Becoming a local landmark.

Every time I passed it I considered how I might discard it myself. However, carrying a weeks-old soiled diaper a mile-and-a-quarter back to my house never seemed like a good plan.

But surely, I thought, someone on this street full of carefully manicured lawns will take the time to come out with a plastic bag and take this refuse off the street. 

Never happened.

I'd see people out for a walk with their dog and doggie-doo bags; people who pick up raw excrement as a matter of routine. They'd walk right past it.

Today on my way to Moondance for lunch I stopped with an old Target bag and picked up the discarded diaper after I took these pictures. I could feel eyes on me from the surrounding houses. Probably a bit suspicious -- though, on the other hand, their long diaper nightmare had been successfully dealt with. Call me a socialist, if you must.

The "curbside diaper" is an unfortunate visual metaphor for how insular we've become. Though there are surely subdivisions in Franklin and other suburbs that are cared for beyond each homeowner's property edge, there are far too many like this street, which you would be hard-pressed to characterize as a neighborhood. It's just a fast road with houses on either side. I see "perma-refuse" in these kinds of non-places on a regular basis. 

Perhaps they are waiting for the city to deal with these sorts of things. The same city which is cutting back municipal services because the cry has gone up that property taxes are too darn high.

But they still want a discarded diaper to magically disappear.

I feel old, because it used to be different. My dad and I used to go for long walks, and he'd pick up whatever refuse he saw -- and tell me to do the same -- and we'd deposit it with the next neighbor we saw out on the porch or out washing their car. There would be "howdys" and the unquestioning acceptance of whatever my dad and I had picked up; into the garage garbage can it would go. You didn't even have to ask -- this was our neighborhood, after all.

But, in my city, this diaper could not be budged from its position.

So, the question is this: When did we start believing that our "community" -- our responsibility --  ends at our individual driveways?

 

Aerial Footage: Portrait of a Housing Bust | The Big Picture

Fantastic set of aerial photos from Google Images (by way of Boston.com’s Big Picture), showing Florida’s developmental disaster.

The images of half finished (and barely started) developments are strangely beautiful, with a geometric symmetry that belies the state of human misery these developments represent: Lost deposits, bankruptcy, misallocated capital.

Read the rest at: Aerial Footage: Portrait of a Housing Bust | The Big Picture

The end of a grand old building

Say what you will about progress, the need to expand, etc. - - St. Paul's Church on 51st Street will be missed as a local landmark. Structures with character are few and far between in the suburbs.

I took this picture last night; it's gone now.

Economic Development Commission meeting CANCELLED AGAIN

This is just hard to believe.

Unprecedented tough economic times; vacant commercial properties all over the city; businesses struggling to make a go of it; tax burden shifting to homeowners; school budgets strangled -- and we could not roust a quorum for an Economic Development Commission meeting last night. And that's after cancelling LAST MONTH'S meeting as well!

I'll come right out and say it: Time to disband the EDC.

Suburban Sprawl and the Decline of Social Capital

Could this be one of the reasons why more and more people seem to lack empathy for those who do not share their exact demographic?

Recent empirical evidence suggests that the sprawling suburbs may be exacting a negative effect on the public in ways that were entirely predictable, but rarely discussed by national (and many local) policy leaders. This data raises serious questions about the decline of "social capital," defined in the scholarly arena as the "social connections and the attendant norms and trust" that are vital to community-based living.

Read the rest at: t r u t h o u t | Suburban Sprawl and the Decline of Social Capital

Strict new rules on resale shops threaten local assets; Goodbye, Half-Price Books?

From the TERRIBLE MUNICIPAL IDEAS Department:

The new code being adopted by cities around the state is based on a state law that already requires pawn shops and businesses that buy metals and jewelry to take and keep information on sellers and items. The code expands the requirements by including businesses that haven't needed to report transactions in the past and by mandating that the businesses install software from the Northeastern Wisconsin Property Reporting System and input seller identification and detailed merchandise descriptions each day. Businesses must photograph sellers and items, and they must keep the items for a set period of time - 10 to 30 days in most cities that have adopted the ordinances - before reselling them. Desch of Half-Price Books said it would be impossible to comply with that provision because of the storage space it would require.

Is this what the new hyper-surveillance state is coming to?

Moms come into New to You Kids in Greenfield every week to sell their babies' outgrown rompers to the small resale shop. But the business says it will have to close if it has to comply with a new city ordinance requiring it to take each mom's picture and send that, along with detailed descriptions of the items she sells, to a police database every day.

The Greenfield ordinance also imposes transaction fees on resale stores that could amount to tens of thousands of dollars annually - a big burden for small retailers.

"It's horrendous. This will put us out of business if we have to adhere to it," said New to You Kids owner Robert Reinhardt.

Half-Price Books, a national resale chain that has a store a few doors down from Reinhardt's in the Greenfield Fashion Center, will consider getting out of its lease, district manager Joe Desch said.

Half-Price also is thinking about filing a lawsuit against Greenfield on First Amendment grounds, because the new ordinance, which takes effect next summer, will require the bookstore to send police a daily list of customers who sell books to them, with identification and titles sold.

But Greenfield Police Detective Chuck Fletcher has news for resale operators who think they can escape the reporting requirements by moving to another town: There soon may to no place to run, no place to hide.

"You may be able to jump over to Greendale or West Allis, but guess what," said Fletcher, noting that with more cities adopting stricter ordinances, retailers may have trouble finding a place without restrictions.

 

Read the rest at: Greenfield and other cities impose strict new rules on resale shops - JSOnline