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 Streets
1. Always ask yourself, what would the Romans do?
2. Curved roads may be pretty but straight roads are divine.
3. Curved roads are only about themselves, straight roads are about each other.
On Right and Wrong in Planning
4. The right thing to do is always right and nothing to do with what your client, employer, or the public wants.
5. Right is objective, want is subjective, and it is always a mistake to confuse the two.
6. Right and wrong really is black and white. When you see gray, others see green. Gray is the color of greed.
On the Urban Pattern
7. Compact block sizes are about community. Ample block sizes are about profit.
8. Journeys should be short and walkable because they can and not because there is nowhere to go.
9. Street inter-connectivity is about the function of ‘us’. Cul-de-sacs are about the dysfunction of ‘me’.
On Urban Space
10. Space is a living thing, not merely the absence of things.
The Issue 2 cometh soon!
