Last week, the Atlantic web site published an article about the brave Tea Party activists who are challenging the evil urban planners who are interfering with property rights and attempting to socially engineer American cities. Except, the article’s writer, Anthony Flint, seemed to think that was a bad thing.
Some idea of Flint can be gained from his claim that the Heritage Foundation recent published “a grave warning against ‘radical environmentalists,’ driven by, yes, the UN’s Agenda 21.” In fact, as the Antiplanner reported last week, the article in question said exactly the opposite: that Agenda 21 has little or nothing to do with the smart-growth plans being written by urban planners across the country. Apparently, Flint would not pass a high school reading comprehension test.
The real question is why Flint and the Atlantic support urban planners in the first place. Remember, urban planners are the ones who wrote racist zoning ordinances in the early part of the 19th century. Urban planners are the ones who supported urban interstate freeways through minority neighborhoods in the 1950s so they could clear those neighborhoods, which they considered to be slums. Urban planners are the ones who supported slum clearance in general and replacing those slums with high rises like Pruitt-Igoe, which had to be imploded a few years after they were built because they were so unlivable.
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Urban planners are the ones who today support expensive rail transit projects to middle-class suburban neighborhoods even though such projects almost always lead to cuts in bus services to minority neighborhoods. Urban planners are the ones who support urban-growth boundaries and other policies that make housing unaffordable. When that housing becomes unaffordable, urban planners are the ones who support affordable housing mandates that make housing even more unaffordable.
Urban planners are the ones who think that private property “is an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals.” What would the Atlantic think if someone proposed that freedom of the press was “an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals”?
Ironically, Flint begins his article describing how Jane Jacobs was once ignored and dismissed during a public planning hearing in New York City. He then spends the rest of his article defending planners who similarly ignore and dismiss Tea Party activists today. Apparently, for Flint, trampling on people’s rights in the name of the “greater social good” is perfectly fine, and anyone except Jane Jacobs who attempts to defend their rights is some kind of right-wing nut job.
The Autoplanner; Urban planners are the ones who supported interstate freeways
THWM: You’re right, urban planners have also eliminated lots of rails lines too!
Jane Jacobs, that vicious little bridge troll. Jane Jacobs was an advocate for density, mixed use but took strides to oppose urban renewal, yet her attempts to revitalize blighted urban areas, the factors that she argued for instead led to gentrification of what is now some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Her ideas have been criticized for not addressing problems of scale, or explaining how infrastructure should be built. Infrastructure is really really expensive in a city, especially when you have to tear the streets up to build new pipes and wires without disturbing existing ones all for the demands to address new residents let alone the ultimate end where it all has to be completely replaced. Existing lines may still be in use and the inconvenience of power or water loss of thousands of customers. Jacobs had no professional training and only a high school diploma. She herself helped gentrify the very neighborhood she lived in; she converted a old candy shop to a residential building. Ironically there was a completely unexpected influx of affluent residents back into the inner city. And although her ideas of planning were praised at times by some as “universal”. they were criticized as impossible when a city grows from say one million to ten million (which has happened many times in the Third World). For those who can’t see it, the hollowness of this urban planning strategy was exposed in cities like New Orleans, where planners were tarting up historic districts for tourists, even as deeper social problems are being ignored and its infrastructure crumbles.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Remember, urban planners are the ones who wrote racist zoning ordinances in the early part of the 19th century.
I respectfully disagree with the above. I believe the zoning ordinances were enacted in the early part of the 20th Century.
Certainly the zoning ordinance in Montgomery County, Maryland (now much admired by planners across the nation) was originally written in the 1920’s, and yes, racial segregation was one of its goals and purposes.
Urban planners are the ones who supported urban interstate freeways through minority neighborhoods in the 1950s so they could clear those neighborhoods, which they considered to be slums. Urban planners are the ones who supported slum clearance in general and replacing those slums with high rises like Pruitt-Igoe, which had to be imploded a few years after they were built because they were so unlivable.
Politicians also played a role in this. In the District of Columbia, wealthy (and white) residents of the Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. corridor got Congress (which then had absolute control of D.C.) to re-route the Northwest Expressway (U.S. 240 then, I-270 now) away from their neighborhoods to a corridor east of Rock Creek Park through neighborhoods that were mostly working-class and many were majority African-American.
It eventually led (after many years of acrimony) to the highway being entirely cancelled “inside” the Capital Beltway.
Putting the cart before the horse a bit today Mr. O’Toole? Segregated zoning was a symptom of segregation not the other way around. And thanks to CP for pointing out once again that planners and politicians are different cohorts. You never hear Mr. O’Toole praise the planners that came to the CapMetro public hearings in opposition to the Red Line (a.k.a train to nowhere) mainly due to the excessive costs and low ridership projections. Nope, it’s the planners that get the blame!
Also re: “What would the Atlantic think if someone proposed that freedom of the press was ‘an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals’â€? It is and has. In fact, the interpretation of the constitution and it’s application has always been fluid (despite the chagrin of strict constitutionalists). Property rights have changed (air rights), free press has changed (FOI), free speech has changed (Citizen United), often to promote ever evolving or devolving goals. To what extent this has been good or bad is debatable, but it is a fact of history.
And even though I’ve mentioned this a couple of times here in the last few weeks, using Mr. O’Toole’s conflated logic and applying it to the conservative or Tea Party movements we can say just as many awful and disturbing things about these cohorts, particularly when it comes to race and socioeconomics. The words two-faced and hypocrite come to mind.
Mr. O’Toole, there has been a dearth of posts lately that look at a problem and offer a solution, or at the least offer a forum to have a civilized debate. There have been several where people who believe in growth management are called communist murderers or are held responsible for most every socioeconomic injustices. Maybe I’m confused and after all you are just “some kind of right-wing nut job.” Say it aint so!
brave Tea Party activists who are challenging the evil urban planners who are interfering with property rights and attempting to socially engineer American cities
Last week you said they were conspiracy theorists. This week they are heroes. Which is it?
DS
Urban planners are the ones who today support expensive rail transit projects to middle-class suburban neighborhoods even though such projects almost always lead to cuts in bus services to minority neighborhoods.
Conflation or hasty generalization. Which is it?
DS
Urban planners are the ones who think that private property “is an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals.â€
Property rights written on stone tablets handed down from a mountaintop, or created by society. Which is it?
DS
I agree that some recent Antiplanner posts have been rather generalized attacks blaming planners for some terrible historic events. I can understand why planners would react with hostility.
The contrasts between the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement is enormously interesting. The differences in press coverage pretty much proves the conventional wisdom of great liberal/conservative bias in all the major networks and newspapers.
It will also be instructive to see what results are achieved as the two movements took polar opposite approaches toward change. The Tea Party went for maximum political/democratic process impact, minimum publicity, and maximum focus on core issues. The Occupy Wall Street went for minimal interaction with the political/democratic system, maximum publicity, and maximum spread of issues covered.
By the way, to judge a group of people based upon the color of their skin is the dictionary definition of racism.
BTW, the Ginder twenny WUN nutters in SW Colo just wasted $hundreds of thousands and countless hours of staff time by derailing a volunteer planning board with their fringe UN conspiracy theories. Volunteers are not professionals trained to handle loud, enraged conspiracy theory nutters. Our country is losing its way, and the Agenda 21 crazies are an excellent indicator of that adriftness.
DS
So when people want live in a public park, ignore the advice of the professionals and make some noisy protest they represent the 99%? But when people want to simply show up at a planning meeting, ignore the advice fo the professionals and make some noisy protest they’re lunatic nut jobs?
This country has a long history of nut jobs and those on the fringe making noise and being more annoying than an outhouse full of black flies. But everyone know and then one of those noisy nuttjobs turns out to be pointing us down a better path.
As I said in 6: Conflation or hasty generalization. Which is it?
DS
“nutters” “fringe” “conspiracy theories” “conspiracy theory nutters” “crazies”
Congratulations, Dan. You’re at the first level of Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement: Name-calling. Perhaps this is why you didn’t quite finish your Master’s.
BTW, “adriftness” is not a word.
HTH
Frank, any comment on the angry minority yelling nutty conspiracy theories who wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and staff time and the time of the community? Why not?
DS
Who are the crazy people?
1. A group of international planners who get paid huge salaries from the UN and write documents that self-purports to direct the entire world to plan their communities according to Agenda 21.
2. Local citizens who take Agenda 21 at face value.
3. Local planners who know that the UN is a worthless bag of hot air, but won’t admit it in their written work.
Teal clarifies the discussion ably. He did forget one choice, so Fixed It For You:
4. A few people who take 1-3 seriously.
DS
Sandy Teal said: The contrasts between the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement is enormously interesting.
THWM: No shit that there is a contrast!
The tea party defends oligarchy corruption.
While the OWSM fights back against oligarchy corruption.