The demise of “the country”
Freshly back from a visit to Northwest Ohio. Farm country. Or what used to be farm country. Today’s post is all about lamenting, so sorry to whine but the loss of true farm land and farm communities is at best sad and at worst destroying the future of cities.
Disclaimer: I grew up on a farm so I am very biased.
BEST = SAD … I miss the views of fields and forests without McRanch-ions dotting the landscape. Sure the percentage of people who farm has dropped drastically, thus people do no need to live in the small towns but that’s the problem: they DON’T live in small towns, they buy 1/4 acre out in the country and slap together a pablum ranch house. Bleh.
WORST = DESTROYING THE FUTURE OF CITIES … When the lines blur between “town” and “country,” both suffer. Moving into a ranch-ette in the country does not give someone the best of both worlds. In fact it is the worst: isolation, long drives, not nearly as much space as you thought – besides what do I need it all for.
So if I had more time, I would look up some stats on the de-densifying of America because that would be a good reality check … but I don’t have that kind of time right now and am not that interested in the objective reality of my subjective reaction.
In praise of the Malecon
I guess the closest word we have in English would be Boardwalk? I just wanted to make a note to come back to this later because the idea of a Malecon – a public, ocean-front boulevard – has a lot of cache. Maybe because in Florida where I live so much waterfront real estate is private, but I LOVE the idea of a Malecon. Like South Beach, Las Olas in Ft. Lauderdale or a somewhat similar but very tourist-y version in Virginia Beach – these spaces are a simultaneous enjoyment of nature, other people and city life. For me it doesn’t get much better and I look forward to visiting other versions of The Malecon – hopefully in Havana one day, then maybe Puerto Vallarta, Marbella … Where else?
Mayor for President
This recent article got me thinking:
“Cory Booker: Bringing Newark Back” (Fortune Magazine / CNN.com)
Not about how I want Booker to be President, but rather about who typically becomes President of the United States. In recent times, there was the ill-fated bid for the seat from Rudy Giuliani … In history I believe that we only have Grover Cleveland (Buffalo, NY from 1881 – 1883), Andrew Johnson (Greeneville, Tennessee from 1830 – 1833) and Calvin Coolidge (Northampton, Massachusetts from 1910 – 1911). According to this history buff from one of those Q&A websites, none were mayor just before being elected President of the United States.
What would happen then if a mayor from a major US city were elected president? And yes Newark is major-enough, but then again this really isn’t about Booker. Who says that Senators and Governors make better Presidents of an urban nation? What if someone who understands cities was elected as the leader of the “free-world,” which is now the “free-world of cities”?
PS – Let’s NOT elect someone like Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons!!!
Next read
Here’s the next book I’m reading:
“Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier” (Edward Glaeser)
Hopefully if enough people keep writing the same thing, it will start to get through people’s skulls and make some sense!!!
In a nutshell …
The Global Post series on the rise of mega-cities has a wonderful interview with Stewart Brand. Here’s the gem:
“The old thinking was that slums are the problem and the new thinking is that slums are the solution.”
Amen.
Mega-Cities Series on Global Post
This is a must-read for anyone interested in this blog … which sometimes seems to be no one.
But the subject matter interests me enough to keep on keepin’ on. Here’s the link:
“Special Report: The Rise of Megacities … Dhaka: The fastest-growing mega-city in the world”
I particularly liked this passage:
“The earth’s countryside is emptying out, more quickly all the time. It took about 10,000 years for the human population to become 3 percent urban — a period extending roughly from the dawn of human settlement until 1800. A century later, Earth was still just 14 percent urban. But in 2007, the United Nations announced we’d crossed a monumental threshold. For the first time, more than 50 percent of the world lived in cities rather than rural villages and farms.”
THIS IS IMPORTANT!!! WE ARE WITNESSING PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT HISTORICAL SHIFT IN MANY CENTURIES!!! PEOPLE NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!!
The role of squares
Protest at Tahrir Square
The dramatic events we’ve been seeing in Egypt these past few weeks have lead me to reflect on the role of squares. Tiananmen. Red. Trafalgar. Time. And now Tahrir Square.
While protests are not always popular (especially with those whose policies or regime are being protested against), they are an essential function of free speech and the right to assemble. In my opinion, they – as much as newspapers or voting – are essential for democracy.
Let me be clear … The form of major cities is a factor influencing a country’s democratic culture. I take this not only from what’s happening in Egypt but also from what happened in Kiev in 2004 in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) and what doesn’t happen very often in my own country.
What does it mean for a democratic country that there are very few places to gather en masse? What if all of the new “urban” construction is utterly without these public spaces? Will a whole new generation of Americans really think that a mall with “square” in the name is enough?
and what about Port-au-Prince?
from TIME.com
I have heard rumors of completely resettling the Haitian capital that sounds pretty wacky schemes for redoing the city into some utopian, agricultural paradise that spreads the city throughout the greater Port-au-Prince region. What worries me the most is the sort of “Shock Doctrine” craziness cooked up in the wake of Katrina and other disasters.
A recent statement by the Haitian ambassador to the US makes me worry even more:
If you have not read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine,” please do … and let me know what you think in relation to reshaping the urban landscape. Klein addresses shock therapy-style changes at the level of a nation or an economy, but does not necessarily drill down to the city except in talking about New Orleans (here is a link to an article about her take on NOLA).
What do the politics in Haiti say about what will happen to the capital? What is already starting to happen? News in the US about this important catastrophe has slowed to a trickle and covers odd stories like Baptist missionaries trying to smuggle children into the DR or wealthy Haitian children attending high school in West Kendall, Miami. Not that I don’t want to know those things but rarely is anything discussed anymore about the big picture.
And for a country with such a high % of people living in or depending on the capital city, the fate of Port-au-Prince weighs heavily on my mind when I think of Haiti.
Having just heard this morning of the major quake in Chile, my heart goes out to the families affected. We are praying fo r you here and around the world.
great book!
I recently read this book and it has me thinking a lot about how cities can be the SOLUTION to our problems, not the cause of them.
It reminded me of something Andres Duany said about his favorite natural/conservation place in the world … He says it’s Times Square in NYC because there are so many people there that the people are not out bothering the bears.
In other words, the more people can safely, efficiently and happily congregate in cities – the better it is for preserving and reinvigorating our natural wild landscapes. Here is a blog post about it the book:
Green Metropolis: What Cities Can Teach the Country about True Sustainability (David Owen)
In fact, this book affected me as much as Duany’s “Suburban Nation,” which is to say A LOT. It’s made me think of things much differently now and I welcome your thoughts, critiques and questions if you have read it, too.
cities in recession
the “Great Recession” is what they’re calling it and here in the US people, businesses and especially local governments are having to SLASH budgets. We can all see how this affects cities negatively in service cutbacks and tough trade-offs. In some cases we can see how they handle it positively in reducing unnecessary expenditures or finding creative ways to do more with less. But what about cities could be the way out of this economic crisis?
