The “Seven50” plan is meant to guide land-use and transportation in seven Southeast Florida counties, including Miami-Dade County, for 50 years. Partly funded by a $4.25 million sustainable communities grant from HUD to the South Florida Regional Planning Council, the plan predictably calls for densification, walkable neighborhoods, and improved transit, It can help improve control sale generic tadalafil and endurance through toning the pubococcygeus muscles which let you stop the urine mid-stream flow. There have been a lot of people are side effects levitra using all these top supplements for aphrodisiac that increase love making desire and pleasure with no kind of side adverse effect. Everything what I mention above makes sense in the advanced stages of the biliary pancreatitis, as well. http://opacc.cv/documentos/Conteudo%20Programatico%20e%20CV%20do%20Formador_%20Formacao%20em%20S%20%20Vicente.pdf cheap viagra in uk It becomes extremely necessary to cure such problems at the personal level may also generic viagra on line http://opacc.cv/opacc/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/documentos_Formacao2012_docs_Controlo%20Interno%20e%20Auditoria_2012.pdf start reflecting in one’s workplace. because any prescription that doesn’t work in Portland or San Jose should be applied everywhere else anyway.
The good news is that three of the counties have decided to opt out of the plan. Congratulations to the American Coalition 4 Property Rights for successfully killing at least three-sevenths of the plan.
Come on msetty tell us all how American Coalition 4 Property Rights libeled and intimidated the poor, timid, cowering government planners who just wanted to bring us all the benefits of walkability, bikability, and not-being-able-to-drive-at-all-ability & new urbanism to everyone in the US, including those who want to walk from Fairbanks to Anchorage to buy their arugula. Then explain to us how after the presentations, the Koch Brothers and Wendell Cox feasted on planners’ blood while the poor things were held down by anti-transit demagogues. They then all drove off in full-size SUV’s plastered with stickers like “death to transportation choice!” and “walking should be illegal!”
Then after you tell all this, jump into your CAR (not walking, of course, because that would be do as I DO, not as I SAY), and drive down to your local pub to slam a IPA down your gullet and curse selfish auto drivers who don’t want to turn over all their gas tax money to create New Urbanism Utopias where no one will go hungry, no one will be without a mixed-use career, or a pedestrian crossing, or your very own streetcar, where no one will be with a car, where no one will have their health insurance canceled…oh wait.
Never mind. It’s the “good intentions” that count, not the actual bad consequences of central planning. Carry on.
If 19th century transportation doesn’t work for 21st century cities, then of course the solution is to force the cities into 19th century housing to make the transportation work.
Martin, Indian River and St. Lucie counties are 100 miles from Miami. Why they even got into this thing in the first place is a wonder.
That YouTube vid with the “interview” of some “members” of American Coalition 4 Property Rights? Fever swamps! Ginder Twinny-wun! I do enjoy FL.
DS
“the plan predictably calls for densification, walkable neighborhoods, and improved transit, because any prescription that doesn’t work in Portland”
But it does work in Portland! Right, Dan? That’s why Dan is polishing his resume, with an emphasis on his forging partnerships between diverse stakeholders, so he can win that Portland planner job that pays $61,000 to $71,000 a year.
Dan is so excited at the prospect of living in Portland’s dense Pearl District where his family can enjoy a 530 sq ft studio for $1500 or a one-bedroom for over $2k and a 100 Walk Score!
Right, Dan?
So, Metrosucky, Florida isn’t like Nazi Germany, after all, unlike the Portland region; well, at least by your fever swamp of a mind.
A few rural counties coming out against logic is to be expected, given that many have been under the sway of the Tea Party and its Bircher-style paranoia for a few years. I don’t know about those three counties in Florida but there’s a good chance that they fit this mold. As an eeeevviiiillll gummit planner friend of mine pointed out, Florida is almost as crazy as parts of Arizona–who apparently have inherited many of the right wing nutjobs that used to infest the L.A. sub-urbs in Orange County and the fringes of L.A. County.
I recommend this article http://metropolitanhistory.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/paranoid-anti-urbanism-as-an-election-gambit/ to every reasonable person on this blog. In the U.S. anti-urban sentiment and Bircher-led paranoia* is so predictable that academics are studying it.
* Anti-environmental and anti-urban paranoia now appears to be the John Birch Society’s chief activity now that the Really Scary Commies(tm) have pretty much disappeared.**
** Well, the North Koreans are still around, but be assured they’d quickly be a radioactive cinder heap if they actually had the gall to attack the U.S., but I digress.
When academics fall to “studying” and making up labels for their opponents, that is a sure sign that they are beaten in the battle of ideas. It is a sure sign of paranoid mental illness when liberals label 40-60% of the population as “extreme:.
msetty wrote:
A few rural counties coming out against logic is to be expected, given that many have been under the sway of the Tea Party and its Bircher-style paranoia for a few years. I don’t know about those three counties in Florida but there’s a good chance that they fit this mold. As an eeeevviiiillll gummit planner friend of mine pointed out, Florida is almost as crazy as parts of Arizona–who apparently have inherited many of the right wing nutjobs that used to infest the L.A. sub-urbs in Orange County and the fringes of L.A. County.
Mr. Setty, as I have said here more than a few times, I am a lifelong Democrat with a passionate dislike of the John Birch Society and the so-called Tea Party (especially Republican geezers carrying signs that read “Keep the federal government away from my Medicare!”).
But mistakes by planners and the politicians that are supposed to oversee them can (and often do) hurt people and damage or destroy neighborhoods, almost invariably neighborhoods where people do not have the time or resources to attend interminable planning commission meetings and public hearings. The excuses for inflicting damage on those neighborhoods is familiar – a need to “preserve” agricultural lands, increase transit patronage and to build more “affordable” housing units (all of which should be done as far away from area mansion and mcmansion neighborhoods as possible).
CPZ and Sandy Teal,
Take a look at the website of the anti-urbanist group that The Antiplanner cites.
There is plenty of “Agenda 21” conspiracy mongering by those folks who managed to get those three rural counties to opt out of the regional Smart Growth planning. When someone is spreading the same paranoid bullshit that is being spread by the reconstituted Birch Society, Tom DeWeese and similar ilk, I put it in the same category as Birthers and 9/11 “Truthers” e.g., CRAZY!
As for “paranoia” in U.S. politics, the seminal article on the topic was written in 1964 and printed in Harper’s. 1964! http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/. The article focuses on the Birchers and the Goldwater campaign, but the phenomenon identified is still at work, this time among the Tea Party, the anti-urbanists, and a whole series of other right wing causes. This doesn’t mean that most individuals are insane, just that the politics they collectively believe in is.
msetty – I agree with you about there being just as much crazy right wing conspiracy advocacy as there are crazy left wing conspiracy advocacy. I find the Agenda 21 conspiracy to be fascinating because if you take the UN documents seriously, then it truly is a global take over of society by planners, but the right wing conspiracy people don’t believe the UN can accomplish anything, so why can it accomplish this or any conspiracy.
I understand that no real academics take UN statements seriously. But no real academics are “experts” in analyzing their opponents either. And since there is practically no one in academia who admits being to the right of Obama/Kennedy, essentially all the academia craziness is on the left.
Sandy, I agree with you that most of the academic lunacy is on the “left” (whatever that really means), a function of the “long march through the institutions” since the Sixties. Most of the “conservatives” in academia are in business schools, economics departments, and engineering/science, certainly not the “soft” “sciences” dominated by those “left of center.” As you certainly know, many 9/11 “Truthers” are on the loonier side of the left.
On the other hand, there is certainly a lot of lunacy in the anti-urban movement, particularly those who don’t seem to get that the “Agenda 21” conspiracy and others are simply chimeras. The UN has almost no political teeth at all, because the politicians of every country will never give up much power to them, for the general reasons explained in The Dictators Handbook.
I’m not even sure “left” vs. “right” is even an accurate or useful dichotomy. I agree partially with the Phil Agre essay from 2004 (http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html) that [much of what we call] “conservatism” is simply defending the privileges of aristocracies and the super rich, such as what the Koch brothers and their ilk are up to (“like father, like sons” e.g., Fred Koch, their father, was a major founder and funder of the John Birch Society).
On the other hand, Agre painted with too broad a brush and slandered thoughtful conservatives such as those at Front Porch Republic (http://www.http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/) and Strong Towns (http://www.strongtowns.org/). Another thoughtful essay is at this link: http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2012/01/the-virtues-of-conservatism/. In this short but interesting essay, academic (!) Joshua Miller lists valid points he thinks many “conservatives” make, even though he doesn’t think of himself as one:
1. Society is irreducibly complex and cannot be redesigned from an armchair: for every well-meaning policy, there will be unintended consequences. (If you don’t understand the initial reasons for a policy, don’t eliminate it! [Tea Party, are you listening?]
2. Populists often deceive the least advantaged with empty promises in order to win political power. (Beware of egalitarians driving fancy cars!)
3. Most rich people didn’t work hard, but that doesn’t mean we should disparage hard work. (We should disparage unearned wealth and the exploitation that created it!)
4. Inequality is bad, but it may be unavoidable: symbolic praise for ordinary Americans won’t fix material inequalities, but it is not empty, either. Rich people shouldn’t get uppity; they got lucky and they should recommit themselves to social equality.
5. Family matters, communities serve an important purpose in our lives, and faith in God is probably here to stay. (Even if it is probably bunk!)
6. Faith in experts is a lot more like faith in God than experts would have you believe. (Just like faith in Jesus Christ is a lot more like faith in Allah than priests would have you believe.)
7. Liberals have silly biases, too.
One more thing. It is certain that The Antiplanner and others of the libertarian faith ARE NOT “conservatives” as described by Miller. The anti-urbanism movement in general, and that group in Florida and other Agenda 21 conspiracy-mongers in particular, are NOT thoughtful “conservatives” in any sense of the phrase, even though many think of themselves that way.
You don’t know until you live.
The economic tyranny of the Metro areas against the rural areas. Port of Portland? Sure. Port of Astoria? No way.
Factories in Clackamas county? Why not? Factories in Clatsop county? Not in the plan. Sorry. Oh, and affordable housing? Gotta save those large spaces and stuff. How much affordable housing exists in Tillamook county? Been there? How about, none.
But, the Plan! The Plan is everything. And, it’s Smart!
.
Don’t you just love msetty? Whining about those awful conspiracy-theory believing loonies who didn’t want some METRO-like agency with unlimited powers turning half of Florida into Orenco Station….I mean God who wouldn’t want to live in Orenco Station !!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!??!
And he brays about democracy and how important it is, while carefully ignoring how “democracy” and “community involvement” works in these planning charades.
1. Unaccountable planners and their political buddies get together in closed-to-the-public-meetings, masturbate to images of London and the Netherlands, and decided OK this is what we are doing, let’s throw together a big show to pretend we are soliciting public input and listening to the constituents. But remember, the decisions have already been made, now we just need to cultivate public support to cover our butts just in case.
2. Public meetings, most of which are arranged at times or locations inconvenient to actual residents or those they deem opposed to the plan, are set up.
3. Supporters are rounded up and encouraged to show up and shill for the plan.
4. Opponents are restricted by 3 minute time limits to voice their concern. When done, they are given a pat on the head and told their concerns have been noted, ie, thrown in the trash bin.
5. With political cover now established, plan goes ahead full steam, developers get paid off, politicians apply rubber stamps, and everyone gleefully counts their cash and watches their reelection chest get filled from all those campaign donations from fat developers.
6. Plans go way over budget during construction, nothing works out according to plan, everyone says “I knew nothing! Nothing!” Or they get their media lickspittles to write fawning articles on how great the newest smart growth boondoggle is and how it attracted twelve new people to leave their cars and brave transit.
That’s how it really works. Msetty knows this, too, so he’s a lying hypocrite shit. Who also lives on a nice unwalkable ranch instead of the new urbanism paradise he thinks everyone else should live in.
msetty – Thanks for such a thoughtful response.
I find that lunacy is evenly spread between left/right or whatever splits you want to make. But outside of the extreme extremes, almost everybody has some good intentions and some good points in their views. Most “planners” do believe they are applying rationality to improve people’s lives, and they do certainly prevent a lot of lower level private property mistakes that hurt society. Anti-Agenda 21 people certainly have good intentions in opposing a world government that would undoubtedly be disastrous for individual rights, but whether Agenda 21 is working to force sidewalks and stop signs in one’s neighborhood is probably a bridge too far.
msetty wrote:
Take a look at the website of the anti-urbanist group that The Antiplanner cites.
I will.
There is plenty of “Agenda 21? conspiracy mongering by those folks who managed to get those three rural counties to opt out of the regional Smart Growth planning. When someone is spreading the same paranoid bullshit that is being spread by the reconstituted Birch Society, Tom DeWeese and similar ilk, I put it in the same category as Birthers and 9/11 “Truthers” e.g., CRAZY!
But in all the years I have known Randal, I have never known him to mention Agenda 21 as a reason for doing (or not doing) anything.
Being skeptical of Smart Growth planning schemes (be they here in the U.S. in places as far apart as Portland, Oregon and Montgomery County, Maryland – or as far away as Sweden and Germany) does not make a person a “Birther” or “Bircher” or anything else.
I thought A21 was a conspiracy until I noticed that every long-range regional sustainable development plan was exactly the same. Bonus points if someone can tell me where the phrase “sustainable development” came from? Hint, it starts with U and ends with N.
If you compare Metro’s 2040 plan with Florida’s 50-year whatever plan; they are almost word-for-word identical.
How is it that local communities from two states on opposite sides of the country with completely different local politics and culture came up with the exact same plan?
If you compare Metro’s 2040 plan with Florida’s 50-year whatever plan; they are almost word-for-word identical.
The UN never said it was going to personally administer agenda 21 and use blue helmets to transform the US into smart growth paradise. That is the hyperbole that planners use to ridicule agenda 21 opponents.
Instead, the UN acts like a think tank, releasing these ideas into the wild to be inconspicuously adopted by local government units. That way, its goals are accomplished without anyone noticing. Local government loves it, because it creates new bureaucracies, budgets, and enforcement mechanisms.
“Instead, the UN acts like a think tank, releasing these ideas into the wild to be inconspicuously adopted by local government units.”
Blue helmets aside, I think the plan is a little more sinister than just offering up ideas into the wild.
Except for a few folks at the top hoping to cash in, no one in their right mind would adopt this planner nonsense without a lot of help.
I don’t want to make excuses for the UN, because it deserves every bit of ridicule it gets, times ten.
But if you want to understand the UN philosophy, you have to understand that while the UN declared Global Warming the worst thing in the history of the world and the certain death of all mankind if their “scientific” policies were not adopted, they also found time to prescribe in the same documents how girls should receive sexual education, how many gays should be in national parliaments, and what the minimum wage should be in first world countries. You can’t make this stuff up.
To expand on Sandy and msetty’s conversation about the liberal/conservative dichotomy:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-how-do-conservatives-and-liberals-see-the-world/
I found this conversation rather interesting. I feel that most people hold many basic conservative sensibilities and compassionate liberal ideals. Unfortunately, our leaders and the generals of the culture wars wield these sensibilities and ideals like an IED driving their side deeper into fear of the “other”, when in fact there is a ton of consensus out there on most important issues. If you pick up the paper, turn on the TV or dial up your favorite blog you’d never know it, but outside of the fringe elements we’re not so far apart.
bennett:
Good points. The politics of division here was jump-started post-Goldwater. That’s when the funding of the think-tanks on the right began, in order to regain what was lost in the Goldwater defeat. As resource extraction and securing becomes more competitive, certain strategies arise in some quarters to maintain the status quo.
It is true humans have several key things in common that unite us as small groups, but we have very few things that evolved from the savanna to unite us as large groups. Thus the psychology kicks in, and tribalism rises up based on our differences (authoritarian, self-/other-regarding, fear, acceptance of change, reaction to danger, etc). The highlighting of the outliers is what makes money for some.
That is: we are not adapted or evolved for large groups. It is a constant struggle to get along, and competing interests make it harder. I like Haidt and await others merging psychology, environmental psy and social psy to help us get along.
DS
Why should it surprising that these counties opted out? They’re fast growing, highly urbanized counties. The people that have moved there during the last 40 years, didn’t move there because they wanted the things this sort of things this 7/50 plan calls for. It has nothing to do with how crazy there are.
By the very action of rejecting a 50 year plan they’re showing they’re more sane than those pushing such a thing. The idea that we can plan 50 years out is absolutely preposterous. One would have to be more than a few fries short of a happy meal to believe such a thing had any value beyond mental masturbation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlNrtcPCLw