Tag Archives: Smart Growth

Pigs at the Trough| Florida & Obama Build a Legacy | NY Daily News

Obama, build a lasting urban legacy by Richard Florida – NY Daily News.

Pigs at the Trough| Florida & Obama Build a Legacy | NY Daily News
Editorial by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

Richard Florida’s advocacy for President Obama to establish a U.S. Federal Department of Cities is an interesting idea. However, if implemented as outlined by Florida, it is also an inherently flawed one that would inevitably spell danger for our cities. The fatal flaw lies in a tepidness to truly reinvent our development processes. Instead of offering a radical vision to remake city building, Florida’s proposal actually represents more of the same. It would create a new Federal bureaucracy in “dysfunctional Washington” dedicated to the proposition that all special interests are created equal; more ‘Great Society’ than Great Cities. The fact is the majority of our citizens should have long ago grown tired of thinking that the default solution to every problem is a Cabinet-level Federal Department. Coming to CSPAN! The circus of Senate confirmation hearings for the Secretary of Cities, brought to you by National Ready Mixed Concrete Association and Community Organizations International, just as soon as the Senator from Montana releases his hold on the nomination! Stay tuned! More pigs feeding at the Federal trough would inevitably populate Florida’s Department of Cities. That is fine for the pigs but what about the rest of us?

Upon his election in 2006, Florida Governor Rick Scott had a similar opportunity to implement a new vision for building and growth in the State of Florida. His initial thinking was right: streamline the mess of State agencies to break down the ‘silos’ that had emerged between bureaucrats of different departments, reducing the size of State government so it works for its citizens rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, Scott’s implementation of this idea did not really change anything. Scott was unwilling to go far enough (or just paying lip service) to remaking State government. Instead of merging and streamlining the State Departments of Community Affairs, Environmental Protection, and Transportation into one organization dedicated to placing Smart Growth principles at the forefront of the agenda (and, by implication, subordinating road building and moderating environment protection under the umbrella of urban planning and development), Scott subverted urban planning to economic development under the banner of the Department of Economic Opportunity. In the process, Scott managed to make it look like he was doing something while actually protecting the special interests (ah, a real politician!) that made the Florida housing market the ‘birthplace of the Second Great Depression.’

Florida’s Department of Cities idea is not without merit but the implementation of that idea must warrant the importance Florida places on our “cities and metros (as) the engines of our economy,” which, of course, is their very nature as built environments designed for movement, interaction, and transaction. Otherwise, implementing Florida’s idea would be a waste of time, effort and money; what many believe is referred to as “governing” in Washington, D.C.

The only way a Federal Department of Cities could alter the prevailing development paradigm in this country for the last century is if we are willing to place Smart Growth for our cities at the top of the agenda by subsuming the Department of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection Agency, and other disparate Federal agencies and offices (Office of Urban Affairs, and so on) under one roof. Incidentally, this is probably the only way a new Department of Cities could generate bipartisan support by allowing the left and the right to explicitly address their key constituencies (urban interests on one hand, reducing and streamlining government on the other). It would also require both parties adopting an united front to take on other special interests threatened by such reform (most obviously, radical environmentalists). In the absence of such radical thinking, our cities are safer as “laboratories for pragmatic bipartisan policy innovation, pioneering new approaches on everything from schools, crime and gun control to economic development” at the local and State level.

The problem is not that our cities have failed to live up to our ideals. The real problem is everybody associated with city building (architects, developers, urban designers and planners and so on) have not not lived up to the opportunities presented by our cities for the last century. Why would we expect our citizens (and their representatives) to ever trust us and put us in charge when we have demonstratively failed our cities time and time again during their lifetime, their parents’ lifetime, and their grandparents’ lifetime? Instead of searching for magic bullets (like Florida’s idea), let us dedicate ourselves to leading for our cities. The irony is, if we truly did this, we would probably find the perceived need for Florida’s proposal and others like them would disappear. Unless, of course, the point is to become one of the fattest pigs at the trough. If this is the case, then never mind…

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A unanimous Declaration of Planning Independence

IN THE OUTLAW URBANIST, January 4, 2013

A unanimous Declaration of Planning Independence

When in the Course of urban events, it becomes necessary for a people to overthrow the tired paradigm which has guided city building for too long, and to assume a new model of urban growth and renewal for our cities on this earth, the distinct and equal status to which the Laws of Common Sense and of Common Sense’s Spirit entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to revolution.

We hold these truths to be proven fact, that all cities are created of space, that space is a living thing, which is endowed by human Design with certain indeniable attributes, that among these are Movement, Transaction, and the pursuit of Interaction. That to secure these attributes, Urban Designers and Planners are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Beingness of the City, that whenever any paradigm becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Paradigm, laying its foundation on such common sense and organizing its principles in such form, as to them shall to most likely perpetuate the vitality and sustainability of the City.

Scientific method, indeed, will dictate that a Paradigm long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Its evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by overthrowing a Paradigm to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and corruptions, pursuing invariably the same Object manifests a Design to reduce them under absolute Lunacy, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Paradigm, and to provide a new model for the future of the city.

Such has been the patient sufferance of our cities; and such is now the necessity that constrains us to overthrow our current System of City Building. The history of the current Paradigm is a history of repeated injuries and corruptions, all having in direct object the establishment of absolute Lunacy over our cities. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

It has refused to Assent to the wisdom of good Design, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good, found common over 10,000 years of city building.

It has passed Laws and Regulations contrary to the common wisdom of good Design over 10,000 years of city building, refused to reform or suspend such Laws and Regulations when proven fallacious, or lest utterly neglected to attend to them for the public good.

It has refused to pass other Laws and Regulations for the accommodation of good Design, unless the People relinquish the right of sound Planning, a relation inestimable to City Building and formidable to Lunacy only.

It has conspired to call together Professionals at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from Public view, for the sole purposes of corrupting and fatiguing the City into compliance with Its measures.

It has dissolved Common Sense repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness Its invasions on the vital humanism of the City.

It has conspired for a long time, after such dissolutions, to promote mediocre Professionals; whereby the Paradigm, incapable of Annihilation, have been applied to Cities at large without recourse nor correction; the City remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers from without, and convulsions within.

It has endeavored to prevent the good Design of these cities; for that purpose of obstructing the Common Sense building of the City; refusing to pass Laws and Regulations to encourage good Design, and raising the conditions for the Misappropriation of Lands and Social Isolation of Populations.

It has obstructed the Administration of Space for pedestrians, by promoting its Assent to Laws for accommodating the Automobile.

It has made the People dependent on the Automobile alone, for the movement, transaction and interaction of their everyday activities, and increased the time and cost of their livelihood in Urban conditions.

It has erected a multitude of New Laws and Regulations, and sent hither swarms of Attorneys to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

It has kept among us Allocations for Parking designed solely for a handful days of Christmas shopping without regard for times or amount of use in the rest of the Year.

It has affected to render the desires of Professionals independent of and superior to the Civic good.

It has combined with other Paradigms to subject cities to a jurisdiction foreign to their humanistic constitution, and unacknowledged by Common Sense; giving its Assent to their Acts of pretended logic.

For Quartering large bodies of automobiles on our roads: For protecting them, by idiotic regulations, from retardation for any Murders which they have commit on Pedestrians and Bicyclists in our Cities:

For isolating our urban centers from all parts of their Periphery:

For imposing Fees and Taxes on us without benefit to the Civic good:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Choice in our housing types:

For placing the transportation of Automobiles above the Humanity of living:

For abolishing diversity in Our Cities for the sake of suburban conformity, establishing therein an Arbitrary lifestyle, and enlarging its Model so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute Lunacy in our Cities:

For destroying our Street Life, abolishing its most valuable Character, and altering fundamentally the spatial Function of Our Cities:

For suspending Common Sense urbanism, and declaring itself invested with the power to Build Suburbs for us in all cases whatsoever:

It has abdicated Common Sense here, by declaring us inconsequential to City Building and waging War against traditional urbanism:

It has plundered our lands, destroyed the Social Contract between the City and its Citizens, promoted social isolation, and destroyed the fabric of our neighborhoods.

It is at this time renewing efforts to sprawl large suburban communities of suspect Value to complete the works of isolation, desolation and lunacy, already begun with circumstances of Euclidean zoning and deceits of transportation engineering and planning scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy as a model of City Building lest the Death of the City is its aim.

It has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive in a web of bureaucratic incompetence in all agencies against their Cities, to become the executioners of Urban Vitality and Sustainability, or to fail by their Hands.

It has excited domestic special interests against the City, and has endeavored to bring on the Death of our Cities at the hands of faceless suburban sprawl, whose known rule of assimilation is an undistinguished conformity of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:

Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

A Paradigm whose character is thus marked by every act which may define Lunacy, is unfit to be a model for Great Cities.

Nor have Urban Designers and Planners been wanting in attentions to our plight. They have been warned from time to time of attempts by their Paradigm to extend its unwarrantable reign over our Cities. Urban Designers and Planners have been reminded of the flaws of their Paradigm, and they have been conjured by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these corruptions, which, would inevitably spurn revolution. Urban Designers and Planners too have been deaf to the voice of Common Sense and Accepted Wisdom. Urban Designers and Planners must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces their Guilt, and hold them, Responsible as Accomplices in this paradigmatic injustice against Our Cities.

We, therefore, The Outlaw Urbanist, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the our Ancestral history and the wisdom of Master Builders for the righteousness of our cause, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of our Cities, solemnly publish and declare, that Our Cities are, and of Right ought to be Free of the Prevailing Paradigm; that we are Absolved from All Allegiance to the Prevailing Paradigm; and that all political and moral connection between It and City Building is and ought to be totally overthrown; and that as Free and Independent Thinkers, we have full Power to build traditional cities, foster movement, transaction and social interaction in Cities made of Space, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Thinkers may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of Common Sense in the Human Spirit, we pledge each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

This article appears in Major, M.D. (2012) Poor Richard, An Almanac for Architects and Planners (Volume 1 with Foreword by Julia Starr Sanford). Jacksonville, Florida: Forum Books, ISBN-10: 1482659379, ISBN-13: 978-1482659375, ASIN: B00Q1V5VLK. Available for purchase on this page.

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Poor Richard’s Almanac for Planners | Issue 10

Courteous Reader,

I am tempted to win your favor by declaring I wrote this Almanac for Planners solely for the public good. However, this is insincere and you are too wise for the deception of this pretense. The fact is I am excessively poor and, unfortunately, excessively wifeless. To address both problems, I must begin to make some profit since every potential wife always asks, “What kind of car do you drive?” I always have to reply, “I walk”, and the potential wife thinks I am a deviant.

Indeed, this motive would have been enough to write this Almanac many years ago except for the overwhelming desire of the public and professionals to only hear what they want to hear and my overwhelming desire to secure a salary. I am now of sufficient age to no longer care about telling people what they want to hear but only about what they need to know. This has freed me to write this Almanac for Planners in increments of ten cause it worked for Moses and the Almighty. Hopefully, my Almanac gains your likes and retweets as a means of demonstrating the usefulness of my efforts but also your charity to this poor Friend and Servant,

Richard

On Cities

91. A city is only as strong as its weakest street.

92. A city is as old as it feels and suburban sprawl is as old as it looks.

93. Behind every successful city are good streets.

On the Automobile

94. Don’t put all of your automobiles on one road lest it apt to become a parking lot.

95. Cities designed for the automobile shall only live and die for the automobile.

On Urban Planners and Architects

96. Not all urban planners are created equal and the dumb ones are usually the most dangerous and easily found.

97. Whoever speaks the loudest is often the worst ‘planner’ in the room.

98. What an architect or urban planner is not telling you is usually far more important than what they are saying.

On Great Cities

99. Faint hearts never built great cities.

100. All the great cities of the world predate urban planning’s emergence as a distinct profession in the early 20th century. It is not coincidence.

Editor’s Note: This is the last issue of Poor Richard’s Almanac for Planners posted on The Outlaw Urbanist. Poor Richard wrote about 100 more common sayings and witticisms for urban planners, which will appear in the book version of Poor Richard’s Almanac. Stay tuned for the announcement.

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Poor Richard’s Almanac for Planners | Issue 9

Courteous Reader,

I am tempted to win your favor by declaring I wrote this Almanac for Planners solely for the public good. However, this is insincere and you are too wise for the deception of this pretense. The fact is I am excessively poor and, unfortunately, excessively wifeless. To address both problems, I must begin to make some profit since every potential wife always asks, “What kind of car do you drive?” I always have to reply, “I walk”, and the potential wife thinks I am a deviant.

Indeed, this motive would have been enough to write this Almanac many years ago except for the overwhelming desire of the public and professionals to only hear what they want to hear and my overwhelming desire to secure a salary. I am now of sufficient age to no longer care about telling people what they want to hear but only about what they need to know. This has freed me to write this Almanac for Planners in increments of ten cause it worked for Moses and the Almighty. Hopefully, my Almanac gains your likes and retweets as a means of demonstrating the usefulness of my efforts but also your charity to this poor Friend and Servant,

Richard

81. “Gizmo Green” (Steve Mouzon) is often a vague promise to have your cake and eat it too by avoiding the real problem all together.

82. Hitler’s greatest devastation of British cities occurred after the war, courtesy of British town planners.

83. Americans consume land like prostitutes consume clients. These days, in both cases, the outcome is rarely as good as we imagined.

84. Parking is never a right or a privilege but should always be a pleasant surprise. Why do you want to take surprise out of our lives?

85. Having to take out the garbage by car is unnatural… and kinda disgusting.

86. Cul-de-sacs are not just about disconnecting streets. They are about disconnecting ourselves from the world around us. Isolation is their nature.

87. No man is a traffic island.

88. British town planners had already started devastating their cities before World War II. Hitler only sped up the process.

89. Fortune never knocks at the gates of a suburban community. It hides like a thief within…

90.  A pedestrian who never slows is in a hurry. A car that never slows is a harbinger of death.

The Issue 10 cometh soon!

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