As the Antiplanner has traveled and visited people all over the country, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. Though I’ve met thousands of suburban and rural residents who are very happy with their homes and lifestyles, I’ve never met one who thinks the power of government should be used to force others to live in the same lifestyle. Yet I’ve met lots of urban residents who openly admit that they believe their lifestyle is so perfect that government should force more if not most people to live in dense, “walkable” cities.
Do cities turn people into liberal fascists? Or do liberal fascists naturally congregate into cities, and if so, why?
A general description of the phenomenon I’ve observed can be found in Thomas Sowell’s 1995 book, The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell says that America’s liberal elites view themselves as smarter or more insightful than everyone else, and thus qualified to impose their ideas on everyone else. The process of doing so, says Sowell, follows four steps (p. 8):
First, the anointed identify or, more usually, manufacture a crisis. Sowell’s book reviews three such crises: poverty, crime, and teen pregnancy, all of which were declining in the 1960s when the liberals turned them into crises. The crises relevant to this blog include such things as urban sprawl (totally manufactured as in fact it is not a problem at all) and auto driving (while some of the effects of driving are negative, these are easily corrected while the overall benefits of driving are positive).
Second, the anointed propose a solution that inevitably involves government action. Sowell makes it clear that the the leadership of the elites go out of their way to define or manufacture the crises in ways that make it appear the government action are the only solutions. In other words, their real goal is to make government bigger, not to solve problems. I don’t know if that is true or not, but it doesn’t really matter; what matters is they propose the wrong solutions to problems that often don’t really exist.
Third, once the solution is implemented, the results turn out to be very different, and often far worse, than predicted by the anointed. Crime, poverty, and teen pregnancy went up, not down, when government stepped in to “fix” these problems in the 1960s. In the case of urban planning, anti-sprawl policies made housing unaffordable and led to the recent mortgage crisis. Anti-automobile policies make congestion worse and therefore waste even more energy and produce more pollution.
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The final stage is one of denial, in which the elites claim that their policies had nothing to do with the worsening results. Other factors were at work, they claim; in fact, the results might have been even worse if their enlightened policies had not been put into effect.
Sowell notes that the anointed use several tactics to promote their ideas. For example, “empirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision” (p. 2). Whenever the Antiplanner uses data to show that there is no urban sprawl crisis or rail transit doesn’t work in a debate with an urban anointed, the inevitable response is some version of “figures don’t lie but liars figure.” “Statistics can be used to show anything you want,” is another version. These comforting words leave the anointed free to dismiss any data and all that conflict with their vision.
A second fundamental tactic is to presume that they have the moral high ground. “Those who accept this vision are deemed to be not merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane,” says Sowell. “Put differently, those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin” (pp. 2-3). The term “smart growth” is a classic example of this tactic, used solely to bludgeon any dissenters with the claim that they must favor “dumb growth.”
Relying on tactics like these, the anointed avoid confronting the fraudulent nature of their crises and the failures of their solutions. “What is remarkable is how few arguments are really engaged in, and how many substitutes for arguments there are,” says Sowell (p. 6).
While The Vision of the Anointed describes the situation, it doesn’t answer the fundamental question of why people think that way. A partial answer is provided by Sowell’s 1987 book, A Conflict of Visions, in which Sowell traces two different world views back to the late eighteenth century. One view, expressed by Adam Smith, is that humans are imperfect and so we should design institutions that work even if the face of these imperfections. The other view, proposed by William Godwin, is that humans are perfectable, which suggests that the benign hand of government authority should be used to guide people to that perfection.
Today, the Tea Party represents the descendants of Adam Smith, while urban planners are descendants of Godwin. As University of California planners Mel Webber and Fred Collignon wrote more than a decade ago, urban planners were “heir to the postulates of the Enlightenment with its faith in perfectibility.”
The question still remains: why are urbanites more susceptible to the vision of the anointed? Perhaps part of the answer is that the constant friction between strangers that cities impose on their residents leads to a desire for government authority to protect people from those frictions. But a larger part of the answer may be that the role of government is far more visible in cities than elsewhere, and far larger in cities today than in the past, so residents of those cities cannot imagine living without it–and those who want more government are attracted to those cities. In any case, everyone in general and urbanites in particular should be wary of any ideas that make government bigger, as they are probably just part of some elitist scheme to coercively impose their vision on everyone else.
Though things like “suburban trains” are not hostile to “suburbia”. Also suburbs don’t have to be built as hostile places to pedestrians with no side walks.
Sprawl dose exist, even Henry David Thoreau said over 150 years ago, that cities/town should set aside park land, nature needs it’s space too.
Though thats the problem with you Vandal O’Toole & the rest of you Koch funded teabaggers. You’re not inclusive or considerate be it other people, places or means. You want stuff just built around automobiles and only automobiles.
Freedom isn’t free, but that isn’t what you are after, what you are after, is control!
The question still remains: why are urbanites more susceptible to the vision of the anointed?
JK: My guess is that it is a matter of money and size. Big cities are more prone to wasting money on crackpot ideas like toy trains and high density because these are big money makers for a select few and the people aren’t really paying attention. Those that pay attention have trouble gaining influence.
Small towns tend to have more open city council meetings that allow more people to have their say. Their politicians don’t have to raise millions to get elected, so the big money donors don’t dominate.
You can also get a one on one with the officials in a small town. Try that in NYC or LA unless you donated big bucks.
One person can contact a large % of the population by flyering the whole town, again try that in NYC or LA!
Finally, if the above fails, in a small town one person you can get the attention of the politicians by starting a recall and gathering all the required signatures by themself or with a buddy or two.
Thanks
JK
Sprawl is just a low density neighborhood with room for a garden, pets and a place for children to play. Some people prefer a 80 by 100 ft lot, others prefer a acre or more for their needs.
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Yet I’ve met lots of urban residents who openly admit that they believe their lifestyle is so perfect that government should force more if not most people to live in dense, “walkable†cities.
Bullsh**. For the 112th time this assertion is bullsh**.
And hand-flapping toward cultural marginalization themes doesn’t help your case, either.
Maybe this sort of text works as agitprop, but no one with half a brain will be convinced by this amazingly weak argument. But maybe that’s what Koch and the AFP types want.
DS
“Though I’ve met thousands of suburban and rural residents who are very happy with their homes and lifestyles, I’ve never met one who thinks the power of government should be used to force others to live in the same lifestyle.”
Right. They want to use the powers at be for the exact opposite purpose; to keep the “other” out of their lifestyle.
Funny that today’s post (as a result of the reviewed literature) could only make it to 2 sentences before hyperbolic slurs got thrown out. This is just an observation, but could it be that urban residents are more communitarian in nature and rural residents are more individualist in nature because life in each context requires specific traits?
This “anointed, fascist, pro-crime, anti-auto” b.s. is clouding the debate. We’re back to spinning our wheels in 2011.
I haven’t met “lots” of urban residents who believe that people should be forced to live in cities, but I have met several. As a former Liberal, I once held that same view.
My experience has been that all people are selfish and try to get the government, by which I mean their neighbors, friends and children, to subsidize them in their preferred style. The appearance that urbanites are better (worse?) or more forceful about it comes from their large numbers.
I used to do legal work for farmers and small town agri-businesses. I learned first hand how demanding and subsidy hungry thy can be. They think they have the right, an absolute right, to open spaces, large properties, clean air, peace and quiet, as well as big incomes, easy access to medical services and arts and culture, and schools for their kids, and shopping and paved roads and electricity to their distant doors.
In truth, there is much money flowing from city to country.
I haven’t posted here for a while but have read everything. Always nice to see highwaydude and DS are as nasty as ever.
Overall, a great post from the Antiplanner. The real irony here is that the insult throwing leftists (Dan, Fraudman, etc) fit exactly the profile described by Randal. Lots of “hand-waving” (a term favored by Dan), name-calling, but anything but arguments for or against their positions. And a smug superiority complex also pointed out in the Antiplanner’s post.
Anyone else notice how both The Fraudman and Dan insisted that Randal works for Koch? Interesting….
My experience has been that all people are selfish and try to get the government, by which I mean their neighbors, friends and children, to subsidize them in their preferred style. The appearance that urbanites are better (worse?) or more forceful about it comes from their large numbers.
This is my experience as well. This does not, however, mean that government should force more if not most people to live in dense, “walkable†cities. That assertion is bull…erm…hogwash. It is unsupportable, and rather than supporting it in the argument in the post, a hand-wave (dog-whistle?) to a cultural strawman was employed.
Why was hand-waving employed rather than providing supporting evidence?
Hand-waving was employed rather than using evidence because the assertion is not supportable. It is bulls…erm…horse hockey. But that is the standard template. It is expected. That is why the ideology cannot expand beyond the small fraction.
DS
Is there anything more hypocritical than a troll wildly jerking his hand and demanding evidence when his little mind never provides any evidence for his wild assertions?
“nature needs it’s space too.”
What does this mean? Anything? Are you seriously asserting that this statement contains information that I should use when planning and building my own personal environment?
“Though thats the problem with you Vandal O’Toole & the rest of you Koch funded teabaggers.”
Thank you, you’ve cleared things up. You have a cartoon for a mind, which is why you can type something like “nature needs it’s space too” and think you’re contributing to intelligent discourse. Please, sir, tell me where I have to go to pick up my share of the Koch money; those checks from “Industry” and “Big Oil” have almost run out.
“You’re not inclusive or considerate be it other people, places or means. . . . Freedom isn’t free, but that isn’t what you are after, what you are after, is control!”
We’re not considerate enough to just politely cede control over our lives to simple-minded slogan-chanters such as yourself, no, even if hurts your feelings or makes you feel disempowered. It’s not our responsibility to boost your fragile ego by being “inclusive” enough to let you use your ill-considered mantras to design how we live. And your conception of “control” is diseased; what I, personally, am after is control over how I live, which means denying to you that same control over me. My objection to your assumption of control over me doesn’t become an evil thing simply because you write about my having control over my own life as something that makes you want to spit after you type it. When you seek to control me, typing that my pushback to that is merely my seeking to control things is beyond stupid.
You’re a slimey little thing, aren’t you? Your entire writing tone just screams out how frustrated you are that we’re simply not enlightened enough to obey your Obviously True Thoughts. Consider that we might honestly question your grasp of reality and your inability to step out of self-love long enough to read or investigate before proclaiming yourself “Expert.”
If you’re interested in what the author himself has to say, you can find a video of an interview of Sowell by Charlie Rose here. He discusses the theme of his book, not its application to urban problems.
The Antiplanner could go a lot further to develop his Vision of the Anointed argument about the urban elite’s view of the suburbs. There are decades of planner talk deriding the suburbs as “ugly”, “eyesores”, “strip malls”, and “box stores”. It is funny how “box stores” and “strip malls” have lost their negative connotation and are now fairly neutral terms.
I grew up in the suburbs of the American West. When I lived in the urban areas of the American East, I found the inner cities to be hideous. Nobody ever says that, and maybe it is just me, but maybe it is also that millions of suburban people think the same thing but never feel like they need to dump on the urban dwellers.
I wouldn’t call Manhattan hideous, since they spend billions of dollars on some minor aesthetics in the wealthy buildings, but it is certainly on the ugly side of the aesthetic scale. Why is a hodgepodge of building styles considered ugly in the suburbs but beautiful in a city?
It’s not that NE urban areas don’t invoke emotion. Taking the Amtrak through the NE cities made me cry every time I saw kids in NYC school yards that were all asphalt, and people living in the thousands of row houses in Philadelphia. Why are miles of the exact same house considered beautiful in a city, but considered ugly in suburb?
Anyway, history has recorded the winner of urban vs. suburbs. Hundreds of millions of people have voted with their feet. But the urban elite still keep the faith.
Borealis says: “There are decades of planner talk deriding the suburbs as “uglyâ€, “eyesoresâ€, “strip mallsâ€, and “box storesâ€. It is funny how “box stores†and “strip malls†have lost their negative connotation and are now fairly neutral terms.”
You talk as if suburbs, strip malls and box stores are not a result of land-use planning. I’ve said this many times here, but most Antiplanners are not Antiplanners, they are Anti-planning-that-results-in-outcomes-we-do-not-prefer’ers. When planning results in the things Antiplanners prefer (single family developments, increased highway capacity, etc.) it’s not planning, it’s the beloved “free market.”
MJ,
Thanks for the link. Nice to hear it straight from the horses mouth. I’m going to buy this book soon to read more about Sowell’s logic.
From the couple of clips I watched from your link, I think that his critique of the unintended consequences of American social policy is right on. I wonder if he ever speaks to how many of the intended consequences of American social policy were achieved. That is, many of the goals of such policies were achieved, although new problems were created.
Thomas Sowell hardly qualifies as a “scholar” that should be taken seriously by any reasonable standard. But I digress.
The real issue is discussed intelligently here.
Jarrett Walker shows quite succinctly that the blatherings of the ilk of Sowell, Fred Barnes and George Will are simply, blatherings taking advantage of a right wing meme that all efforts towards improving transit and more urban growth consitute “coercion.” Walker shoots that silly notion through the head, notwithstanding Ray LaHood’s very poor choice of words.
BTW, does Koch Industries contribute to the CATO Institute? If they do, then The Autoplanner DOES get a few simolians from them. Money from oil companies also do filter down to a degree, since oil companies have also contributed to CATO (and Reason) over the years.
To bennett:
I don’t think I said what you think I said, but your points are interesting nonetheless. What do you think would have developed if suburbs didn’t have such land-use planning? Are strip malls a function of zoning, or are they a free market result? What about the box stores phenomenon?
I don’t have any opinion on this and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas.
This link is an excellent takedown of Thomas Sowell:
http://otoolefan.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/thomas-sowell-idiot-emeritus/“.
An excerpt, outlining Sowell’s intellectually bankrupt propensity to overuse Nazi/Hitler analogies:
If all of this isn’t vile enough, Thomas Sowell’s latest ad Hitlerum about the BP Oil Disaster made national news. Last month, BP agreed to voluntarily set aside $20 billion to compensate those whose lives and livelihood and already been destroyed by this tragedy. Even Bill O’Reilly was happy about this. But Thomas Sowell could only see Nazis again, saying, “That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people — indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.â€
So getting BP to take responsibility for the disaster they caused is going to lead to another Holocaust? This is the kind of screwball opinion I’d expect from someone in a straitjacket.
Here’s a conservative take in favor of urbanism:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schmidt/schmidt14.html.
Granted, this site sometimes publishes racist drivel, but overall they are relatively intelligent, for conservatives…
Congratulations msetty. You found one “conservative,” who lives in Brooklyn, who is in favor of urbanism. You at least have more evidence than Dan ever does in his 5-8 postings per day.
Well, I focused on Randals’s false premise and the Gish gallop to distract away from it instead of laughing at using Sowell ‘seriously’. But now that Mr Setty has brought it up,
Folks using Sowell as a source are rarely directly sought after for their opinion on policy, as they are out on the fringe. They are, however, used in the culture wars quite often, esp to game civic discourse.
Sowell and his ilk are right-wing think-tank voices from way back. If you do not know why right-wing think tanks exist, you are either too young, or should pay attention to your surroundings – that is: teach yourself something by learning about the context surrounding the original members of The Federalist Society. Who founded it. Who spun off what. What are the ‘what’s’ missions (hint: AEI, Heritage, Cato, CEI, Hoover Institution, et al. ). What are their standard tactics.
Using Sowell-types is a tried-and-true tactic of the far right to game civic discourse.
Next up: Krauthammer’s opinion on how we want you to succumb to Agenda 21 and be in Soshulizt Yew-topia!!!!!11one!
DS
Thomas Sowell hardly qualifies as a “scholar†that should be taken seriously by any reasonable standard. But I digress.
The real issue is discussed intelligently here.
So you want to debate scholarly credentials, do you? Sowell has a PhD from Stanford, has taught at UCLA, Brandeis University and Cornell, and has authored numerous books and scholarly articles. Here is what you get when you do a Google Scholar search on his name. Interesting. Now try Jarrett Walker.
What’s left? Nothing but a bunch of ad hominem attacks and non-sequiturs about Koch.
So you want to debate scholarly credentials, do you? Sowell has a PhD from Stanford, has taught at UCLA, Brandeis University and Cornell, and has authored numerous books and scholarly articles.
So you’re into credentialism, big time, eh? There are lots of PhDs who are also blithering idiots. I’m judging Sowell by what he writes, not the letters after his name.
So you’re into credentialism, big time, eh? There are lots of PhDs who are also blithering idiots. I’m judging Sowell by what he writes, not the letters after his name.
Not personally, but you chose to question his qualifications as a scholar. The list of his scholarly output in the link I posted should remove any doubt. I wish I could say the same for the “scholars” you linked to.
You at least have more evidence than Dan ever does
Again, one wonders if this is a purposeful lie, mendacity…
in his 5-8 postings per day.
Take away defending oneself from scurrilous lies by low-rent partisans, and it is 1-2 per day.
But it is fun to see what kind of bulls— some folks have to make up to spam the thread. It is so obvious that it cannot be effective any more.
DS
Re: #13:
“Why is a hodgepodge of building styles considered ugly in the suburbs but beautiful in a city?”
Interesting points. Maybe it’s not the buildings so much as it is the asphalt and the multitudinous neon signs that appear throughout America: Red Lobster, Wal-Mart, PetSmart, Toys-R-Us, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Target, and on and on. I would much rather see this view than the “view” in the featureless asphalt wasteland suburb where I work. My real preference is for views of wilderness, but that’s just not practical now.
But do I want everyone to be forced to live in a city? Not any more. To each their own.
Granted, this site sometimes publishes racist drivel, but overall they are relatively intelligent, for conservatives…
Typical libtard smear tactics. Not only is this site not racist, but it has several great, black contributors. Could you please point out this “racist drivel” that I seem to have missed over several years of reading LewRockwell.com.
The entire suburbia layout is of government force – zoning, density restrictions, and roadway design.
This insanity and war with words needs to stop — and ROT is a master of putting black and white terms into a very gray situation.
Free markets regarding development tend to favor higher densities. It just makes sense because infrastructure can be paid for adequately.
Hello, the entire Southwest is one giant public works subsidy. How about the internet to ROT’s remote home in Southern Oregon where he does work from? Any subsidies for that?
The accusation that some people are “elitist” is just an excuse to maintain one’s ignorant ways.
Response to #13, #26
It’s not so much about hodgepodge. It’s about scale and defining space first. Humans do not feel comfortable in vastness. When you drive or experience a large surface parking lot or groupings of them, it is not comfortable for this reason — it lack definition of space. Compare that to being in the middle of a field in the Midwest to that of trekking through the forest in the Northwest. I’d guess most would prefer being in a forest than an exposed field. Nature holds the biggest keys to design. I am also conjecturing that evolution of primitive man has given us preference to certain environments and this relates in the design world (that’s not to say that humans enjoy being on the street in the shadows of a 70 story skyscraper on a cold day, either, just because the building defines space).
Then you start to worry about conformity/cohesiveness, diversity and other layers of design.
My favorite article on this matter is the Kaplan and Kaplan preference model:
Borealis:
Yes, most row homes seen in Baltimore and areas of Philly are ugly. I don’t think anyone is saying they look nice unless they are so completely biased towards the urban environment. I, for one, find them pretty ugly.
Now, Brownstones of Brooklyn — those are nice examples of row homes. I am lost to the point you’re trying to make I suppose.
Here’s a blog to market urbanism to go with msetty’s link:
http://marketurbanism.com/
ws,
I think you make my point. You hate suburbia and use neon lights of box stores as an example. That is a perfectly fine opinion, but then is neon-heavy Times Square in NY City, NY an attractive setting?
A link to an academic article about the space-time continuum of urban planning training is not very convincing. People’s sense of what development they like is greatly influenced by what they experience growing up (no duh). You hate suburbia, and I hate NE urban settings — it is a matter of taste, not academic argument.
That brings me back to what the Antiplanner said in his blog post. People like me, suburban kids, might cry when they see things in the dense inner cities, but the Antiplanner posits that suburban people don’t try to use government to force inner cities to change, and that for some reason, people who love the urban setting seem to gravitate toward forcing suburbia to change.
There has been an overwhelming vote by feet across many cultures and many decades from the urban core to the suburbs. But that only matters if you believe in real world data. (Yeah, I realize that Dan the Troll can’t stand real world data.)
Borealis:
1)I never once mentioned neon lights. You might want to re-read my post. That was Frank.
2)I grew up in suburbia and don’t hate what it tries to represent. I detest the snout-style homes, overly-wide and disconnected streets, lack of attention to pedestrian qualities, so on and so forth.
I do, however, enjoy sub-urban settings with acknowledgement of urban design considerations: connected tree lined streets, main street shopping areas, walkability, etc. Most of these neighborhoods are in fact comprised with single family homes.
Design is universal. There will always be a reason why these large-scale newer subdivisions will never be historically preserved: they lack attention to basic design cues. You cannot disregard that preference follows these basic design cues.
I can take 20 people through similarly priced suburbia neighborhoods of Portland to that of similarly priced homes of Portland proper and would bet 15/20 would agree that inner-ring neighborhoods of Portland are far nicer than the comparable suburbia neighborhoods. I will bet you $100 to settle the preference/vote argument right here and now! (This is either a real bet or friendly one, I don’t care).
Suburbia has imposed its beliefs on the urban core: It rammed its freeways through their centers (while destroying historic buildings) and dumped its congestion and massive parking lots on the urban core to feed the suburbia growth fueled by an unfair transportation market that favored cars and sprawl over sensible forms of development.
You are entirely mis-interpreting the scenario.
I agree with WS that the near ideal template for revising suburbia is the typical American small town and/or railroad suburb, pre-World War II. A good example might be the core area of Hillsboro, Oregon–Wendell Cox’s hometown, I think–as well as places like Lake Oswego, sans the postwar curvilinear street hellish additions added after 1950.
These sorts of places have traditionally had a good balance between centrality and walkability–one major key to high transit patronage–with the mix of single family and other types of housing needed by a broad range of people, not just one particular demographic or income strata.
In response to ws and msetty:
I realize you guys are well-intentioned, but I think we are talking past each other. The whole point of the Antiplanner’s posting was that there are people who think they know how everyone should live, and there are people who just live how they want and don’t want to force other people to live one way or another.
If housing design was universal, then a survey of 20 people comparing two neighborhoods in Portland wouldn’t be 15-5, it would have to be 20-0. That kind of suggests that there is not universal standards in housing design. I know that for myself I have chosen vastly different housing at various times in my life, so I have to strongly doubt any concept of universal design.
The bet from ws was interesting. I guess ws meant to imply that an inner-ring neighborhood was much more attractive than a suburban neighborhood. But if they are the same price, then they are also have the same demand-supply relationship. If the inner-ring neighborhood is more attractive to look at by 15/20 people, then there must also be a reason the suburban neighborhood attracts just as much demand/supply.
As to the point that: “Suburbia has imposed its beliefs on the urban core: It rammed its freeways through their centers (while destroying historic buildings) and dumped its congestion and massive parking lots on the urban core to feed the suburbia growth fueled by an unfair transportation market that favored cars and sprawl over sensible forms of development.”
The urban core usually has huge political power, and yet for some reason the urban core has overwhelmingly decided to allow highways and parking to preserve the jobs in the downtown core. That is perhaps because without concentrated jobs there just is not an urban core.
DC bucked allowing highways through the city and the result is tons of jobs moved to the suburbs. NYC carefully balances the needs of commuters and urban dwellers, and makes huge investments for commuters.
But to get back to the basic question posed by the Antiplanner — suburbanites don’t try to force suburbia on the urban core, but the urbanites try to impose urban living on suburbia because they cannot survive the competition. Decades of data in the US and throughout the world show a huge trend toward suburbia.
Competition is a terrible bitch, especially because it forces the real world on academic theories, and academia has to resort to government coercion to keep its theories viable.
Suburbia has imposed its beliefs on the urban core: It rammed its freeways through their centers (while destroying historic buildings) and dumped its congestion and massive parking lots on the urban core to feed the suburbia growth fueled by an unfair transportation market that favored cars and sprawl over sensible forms of development.
I object to this passage. First, the most vocal supporters of central city freeway links were not suburban residents, but traditional downtown business interests. They were seen as vital in order to maintain the CBD as the premier destination for retail. Large parking lots in central cities are not widely found, except where extensive “urban renewal” has taken place. These types of activities did not occur at the behest of suburban residents, but rather at the bidding of central city governments and planners. Finally, suburban growth was initially promoted by the extension of streetcars and commuter rail systems, which tended to predate most modern freeways. As auto ownership increased, suburban development became less tied to these conventional, radial networks, and began to take on more of the character that we now recognize as “suburban”.
I do not know what “sensible” development looks like. To me, sensible is in the eye of the beholder. If the developers who built suburban neighborhoods and the consumers who purchased them thought they were sensible, then I guess they are.
I’m not sure the use of the term “liberal fascist” is appropriate here. “Authoritarian” would have conveyed the same message without the inflammatory rhetorical flourish. Personally, I’m not a big fan of Jonah Goldberg and think it’s sad when otherwise intelligent people give him what I consider undeserved status.
To answer the (rhetorical?) question in the second paragraph, my belief is that people with liberal/Left/progressive/statist sensibilities tend to congregate in central cities. Since they believe their philosophy is superior, the places that give rise to these ideas and that house like-minded individuals are, by extension, also superior.
And yes, there is a certain amount of elitism involved. Some people have strong views about proper architecture and look askance at places that don’t reflect those principles. Others have strong views about the environment and wish to express this through their lifestyle choices. Most are also quick to latch on to narratives that suggest that many urban problems arise from suburbanization, since this vindicates their own choices (while denigrating others) and suggests that these problems can be solved if only others would adopt similar location choices and lifestyles.
MJ: I object to this passage. First, the most vocal supporters of central city freeway links were not suburban residents, but traditional downtown business interests. They were seen as vital in order to maintain the CBD as the premier destination for retail.
ws: That’s a bit of a generalization. There were many players in the game of highways through cities. Few probably enjoyed living next to one in the central city or enjoyed them when they destroyed their existing neighborhood. There’s also a true difference between CBD interests and residential inner-city neighborhood interests. You’ve painted one portrayal of the city: CBD. There’s more to cities than that.
Borealis: “If housing design was universal, then a survey of 20 people comparing two neighborhoods in Portland wouldn’t be 15-5, it would have to be 20-0. That kind of suggests that there is not universal standards in housing design. I know that for myself I have chosen vastly different housing at various times in my life, so I have to strongly doubt any concept of universal design.”
ws: Design, overall, is fairly universal. Humans’ eyes and comfort levels are all reasonably the same. Yes, there are always these avant garde designers who push the edge, or “out there” styles people choose. Randall’s bow tie, for example. But even with Randall’s different bowtie (preference), I am assuming he matches his clothes in the same hue and material (design choice).
I don’t necessarily think preference is universal. There are actually some. We are crossing words here and are at the overlap between design and preference, which are two different things. My conjecture is good design will equate to high preference levels. I think that’s a simple concept.
When you break down a downtown area and properly designed single-family neighborhood, while their scales vary greatly, they are all subscribing to proper urban design. Connected Streets. Definition of the street with shade trees. Similar materiality between street and building. Etc. Etc. People have different preferences for both, but they are definitely similar in more ways than one.
I can get 15/20 people to enjoy a $50.00 New York Steak, while 5 might be vegetarians, and wouldn’t care for it (preference). That doesn’t mean that the $50 steak was not good or well prepared. I can also find that 1/1000 people enjoy pickles and ice cream, but because 100% of people do not dislike pickles and ice cream, does not mean that somehow pickles and ice cream have some sort of culinary validity because that one person liked them.
Maybe a stretch on the analogies, but we are not in the world of absolutes. We have an entire generation grown up in sprawl. People often choose what’s familiar without knowing what’s really out there. Anecdotally, I did not know there were such wonderful neighborhoods in Portland because I grew up in the suburbs and knew nothing else but cul-de-sacs and automobiles.