Down with Urban Utopianism!
One of my complaints with some "smart growth" urban movements is that they can seem like rather thin veils for anti-family and anti-free market agendas. In California and Los Angeles, you see a lot of urban renewal "mixed-use" plans floating around that don't seem all that keen on people having big families, doing big things, or you know, buying big stuff at their leisure.
Of course, in CA, you also see a lot of libertarian-lite, "let's pave everything for people's SUVs" philosophies in the local governments of OC, Riverside, and Ventura counties. All things considered, it's an interesting mix of how people view "progress."
Anyway, Seattle's fast-becoming a worst-case scenario for those who abhor utopianism. This opinion piece by James Lileks illustrates (for me at least) the end result of some of today's social engineering ideals.
Of course, in CA, you also see a lot of libertarian-lite, "let's pave everything for people's SUVs" philosophies in the local governments of OC, Riverside, and Ventura counties. All things considered, it's an interesting mix of how people view "progress."
Anyway, Seattle's fast-becoming a worst-case scenario for those who abhor utopianism. This opinion piece by James Lileks illustrates (for me at least) the end result of some of today's social engineering ideals.
America is not [the UN's] model; America is the example of what is wrong with progress. The idea of people living in large houses with nice lawns, driving a personal vehicle (by themselves, on the route of their choosing) to the store to buy big steaks subsequently cooked on a carbon-emitting outdoor grill -- well, who wants to live like that?
About 6 billion people, if you give them the chance. But forgive them, Kofi; they know not what they do.
The idea of people sitting at home in sweatpants watching a big TV while shoveling in the Haagen-Daz mortifies the social engineers; they can practically feel the planet wobble on its axis from the cumulative weight of so much freedom and prosperity.
The preferred model for a nice, controlled population is a dense city where your small apartment has a tiny fridge stocked with bean curd molded into pleasant, food-like shapes. Trains take you to your job, which is either building trains, fixing trains, designing public service posters for trains, cleaning trains or writing software to operate trains. Once a week you'll pull on your best taupe-hued hemp jumpsuit and take the train to the biweekly Culture Expo to hear something held up to enlightened ridicule (anything's game, except Islam and Global Warming).
It may sound like hell itself, but at least it's sustainable.
1 Comments:
You know why the rest of the planet is like that? Because it's had urban development for the last several thousand, instead of several hundred, years.
Personally I much prefer a mixed use walking neighborhood, and currently live in a house with a bbq and a yard... in a mixed use walking neighborhood!
That aside, the only way for us to maintain the current pattern of land use is to, you know, use up all the land. People wouldn't be buying up land in dumps like Arizona and Nevada (fastest growing populations in the union!) if they could get it anywhere else. And unless you completely curb population growth, you'll run out of land there, too, someday.
So yes, it sucks that we can;t all have huge houses with big lawns, but it isn;t a joke that it's not "sustainable." It isn't sustainable. We can start changing patterns and planning for that day now, or we can suffer later. Look how much effort LA is having to go through to finally become a city built for people instead of built for cars, and then imagine it on a national scale.
Somehow I think it's incredibly foolish to dismiss the idea that we should plan for the future as some stupid exercise in denying people the massive homes they all want.
Post a Comment
<< Home