I recently read Steven Ambrose’s two-volume biography of Dwight Eisenhower. In it, Ambrose tells a couple of amusing stories about Eisenhower’s encounters with planners.
When Nikita Krushchev came to the United States in 1959, Eisenhower gave him a helicopter ride over Washington, DC. “Eisenhower had wanted Krushchev to see all those middle-class homes, and all those automobiles rushing out of Washington in the late afternoon to get to them,” says Ambrose (see pages 542-543 of volume II). “Krushchev did, but he would not say anything or even change expression.”
But a week later, Krushchev raised the subject. Far from being impressed by American homes and automobiles, “he was shocked at all the waste. Those vast numbers of cars, he said, represented only a waste of time, money, and effort,” said Krushchev. Krushchev’s reaction to American “sprawl” was identical to those of modern “smart-growth” planners.
Anticipating the “accessibility” argument, Krushchev noted that “In his country there was little need for such roads because the Soviet people lived close together, did not care for automobiles, and seldom moved.” Of course, as soon as the Soviet Union fell, many Russians went out and bought cars.
Krushchev also foresaw the costs of sprawl argument, which was then fourteen years in the future. “All those houses, Krushchev continued, cost more to build, more to heat, more for upkeep and surrounding grounds than the multiple-family housing in the Soviet Union.” As I detail in Smart Growth and the Ideal City, Russian apartments were tiny–averaging 600 square feet for a family of four.
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Ambrose tells another interesting story on page 387 (volume I). When the allies were invading Germany in World War II, allied planners assumed that the Germans would destroy all the bridges across the Rhine River. So they planned to use pontoon bridges to make crossings at two different locations, one for Montgomery’s army and one for Patton’s army.
When Omar Bradley’s army got to the Rhine, however, they found an intact bridge at Remagen that the Germans had failed to blow up. The explosives were in place but the Americans forced the Germans away before they could blow them. Naturally, the Americans swarmed across the bridge to defend the prize.
When Bradley reported to Eisenhower’s headquarters (SHAEF) that he had taken a bridge and was using it to invade Germany, General Pinky Bull (I am not making this up) ordered Bradley to bring his troops back to the French side of the River because “a crossing at Remagen was not part of the SHAEF plan.” “What am I supposed to do,” asked an exasperated Bradley, “blow it up?”
When Bradley finally reached Eisenhower, Eisenhower encouraged him to use the crossing and gave him reserve divisions to exploit it. When Bradley mentioned General Bull’s concerns, Eisenhower’s response was, “To hell with the planners!”
This illustrates a problem that planners still have today. Once they have written a plan, they are so invested in it (and often have generated special interest groups to make sure it is implemented) that new information is ignored, even if the information shows that the plan is wrong. Unfortunately, few cities or government agencies have leaders with the authority or courage to say “to hell with the planners!”
Once they have written a plan, they are so invested in it (and often have generated special interest groups to make sure it is implemented) that new information is ignored, even if the information shows that the plan is wrong.
Once again, nothing specific. Not one phrase that says: “as in x place” or “for example y”. Nothing. That’s the best that Randal can do: vague generalities created from the air.
I know no one who works for a place like this, I have never worked in a place like this, I’ve never heard complaints of a place like this, you see no investigative stories in the paper of places like this, no stories on 60 Minutes, nothing in IndyMedia, no graffiti, nothing in the bottle that washed up on shore, no lipstick story on a discarded napkin.
My, it’s a huge conspiracy. Massive silence. Why won’t anyone talk?
Thouuuusands of people are in on it, the media knows about it because disgruntled people have told them, yet the media refuse to report on it. What has become of our country?
DS
Dan: Once they have written a plan, they are so invested in it (and often have generated special interest groups to make sure it is implemented) that new information is ignored, even if the information shows that the plan is wrong.
Once again, nothing specific. Not one phrase that says: “as in x place†or “for example yâ€Â. Nothing. That’s the best that Randal can do: vague generalities created from the air.
JK: The above follows from the example given in the book. It is also a good description of Oregon’s SB100 and the creation of the thousand fiends to guard the land use system against changes.
Dan: I know no one who works for a place like this, I have never worked in a place like this, I’ve never heard complaints of a place like this, you see no investigative stories in the paper of places like this, no stories on 60 Minutes, nothing in IndyMedia, no graffiti, nothing in the bottle that washed up on shore, no lipstick story on a discarded napkin.
My, it’s a huge conspiracy. Massive silence. Why won’t anyone talk?
Thouuuusands of people are in on it, the media knows about it because disgruntled people have told them, yet the media refuse to report on it. What has become of our country?
JK: Why don’t you just prove Randall wrong with evidence that government plans are routinely abandoned or changed at the first signs of problems (instead of after it was impossible to hide the blunders.)
I know of one local pan that resulted in killing a small business district soon after the plan started. Twenty years later, it still hadn’t been changed, but the planners were going to correct a few mistakes this time around.
One key element was eliminating left turns into the district to improve traffic flow on a main street. At the same time they removed parking, widened the sidewalks and planted trees. Once they decided to remove the parking, they had room for either trees or a left turn lane. They choose trees. I confronted a planner about this and his only response was “but trees are so niceâ€Â. There you have it: kill a business district to put in a few trees.
Thanks
JK
Thank you Jim.
JK: The above follows from the example given in the book…
This presumes the single source you use is correct. The single source, apparently, doesn’t know about the planning process being iterative rather than static.
It also, apparently, relies on the experience of one planning agency to conflate with the rest of the world. This is similar to, say, comparing the performance of the recent President to the other 3½ dz. presidents. Or the performance of the national real estate market in the last 3 months to the last 3 years.
JK: Why don’t you just prove Randall wrong with evidence that government plans are routinely abandoned or changed at the first signs of problems
A) This would distract away from the fact that no one can give specifics to the claim. We wouldn’t want to change the subject, right?
B)At the first sign of problems? That would be chaos. You neglect scale in your assessments: temporal and spatial. Long-term plans are just that and judging them in the short term leads to bias.
But to your point, the planning process is iterative: ‘plan, check, do, check’ is the phrase. That’s what milestones and metrics are for.
But to your point – again, it’s incumbent upon the claimant to back their claims; in this case, the assertion is so fundamentally wrong it is hard to know where to begin. But let’s try:
We find abandoned plans all the time. To use a case where fetishizers can relate to and trumpet (but curiously don’t), we look immediately north and find Seattle dropped their monorail expansion.
Let’s also note the similar topography to PDX and briefly consider the cost of Right-Of-Way purchase in urban areas – this allows us to imagine how much money it would take to add fwy lane-miles there and why we search for examples of fwy expansion in an era of crumbling bridges and car-swallowing potholes.
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They choose trees. I confronted a planner about this and his only response was “but trees are so niceâ€Â. There you have it: kill a business district to put in a few trees.
Maybe he didn’t expect a layperson to be as discerning and analytical as you, Jim, and just gave a typical answer.
Of course you have the excellent training and knowledge to know that trees add value (non-market goods and hedonic value) to business districts. But I’ll remind you of what you already know:
Templeton, S.R., Goldman, G. 1996. Estimating Economic Activity and Impacts of Urban Forestry in California with Multiple Data Sources from the Early 1990s. Journ. Arbor. 22:3
Wolf K.L. 2003. Public response to the urban forest in inner-city business districts. Journ. Arbor. 29:3 pp. 117-126
Bisco Werner, J.E., Raser, J., Chandler, T.J., and O’Gorman, M. 2002. Trees mean business: a study of the economic impacts of trees and forests in the commercial districts of New York City and New Jersey. New York: Trees New York. 141 pp.
Laverne, R.J., Winson-Geideman, K. 2003. The Influence of Trees and Landscaping on Rental Rates at Office Buildings. Journ. Arbor. 29:5 September 2003 pp. 281-290
McPherson, E.G., Simpson, J.R. 2002. A comparison of municipal forest benefits and costs in Modesto and Santa Monica, California, USA. Urban For. Urban Green. 1 (2002) pp. 61-74.
McPherson, E.G., Nowak, D., Heisler, G. Grimmond, S., Souch, C., Grant,R., Rowntree, R.A. 1997. Quantifying urban forest structure, function, and value: the Chicago urban forest climate project. Urban Ecosystems 1: 49-61.
DS
With all due respect, in my experience, most “plans” that are abandoned are abaondoned due to lack
of funds for government to continue, not due to the realization that they are flawed plans.
Also, in regard to “urban forests” being valuable, which I endorse, today’s planners are making
lots so small and growth so dense that we are losing our urban forest. The skylines of communities
are changing from tall trees to tall buildings, rooflines, and powerlines. The trees that are planted in parking
lots and along residential streets are short and will never be as beautiful or add the grace and
beauty to a community as do the tall trees that planners are forcing to be cut down to accomodate the dense development.