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
51. We should have greater faith in the capacity of our cities to reach a state of dynamic equilibrium without the excesses of our interference.
52. Cities are not about where we are from or where we are going but how we are getting there.
53. Bad planning and road rage are directly related. Always design happy cities, not angry ones.
On Walking
54. “As the crow flies” is a useless measure of walkability because we are not crows and do not fly.
55. An apple a day may keep the doctor away but walking costs less in money and apples.
On Walls
56. When Robert Frost wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors,” he was being sarcastic.
57. Private walls are often about hiding what we have, public walls are often about hiding what we don’t want to know.
58. The height of walls directly relates to our level of fear when those walls are breached.
59. The fatal flaw of walls is you can usually breach any wall by going around it.
On Social Justice
60. Social justice lies in opportunity, not reward.
The Issue 7 cometh soon!
