Faith Based City Planning

Although I agree that doing anything compelled only by blind faith is unwise I also dont buy this guy’s argument. First of all if you really love the burbs that much go ahead and live in them, but don’t pretend your promoting sustainability based on the fact that your developement has acres of lawn that you call “pervious area”. Also it seems to me that he is merely substituting his “faith” in curvy roads and full front porches in place of new urbanist design standards he decries in the article (one of which is front porches, oddly enough). He also sets up a total false dicotomy of safe lush lawns of the burbs and high rise high crime cities. And what is more faith based than trusting a software package to do all the designing for you?

I really think that since WWII our predominant developement pattern has been the suburbs and therefor until recently there really hasn’t been much of a choice. Our cities are undergoing real changes and a lot of younger people are moving to more urban environments. I will say though that either side acting holier than thou doesn’t much move the discussion in any productive way.

Although the argument started off relatively well (I think our neighbourhoods can sometimes be over-designed and over-regulated), he doesn’t seem to have any logic to his arguments later on: 

“I am thankful that I live in a place that offers a sense of space, yet is not too distant from neighbors and services. I am especially thankful for choice. Yes, there is a coffee shop about a 10 minute walk away, but a three minute drive will get me to a coffee shop that offers more tasty drinks at lower costs.

Looking outside, I see two feet of new snow. I’m especially thankful that I do not have to use our icy walks in the sub-zero temperatures, and wait for the bus that connects downtown to the bus that would take me to within a ¼ mile of my office. Yes I’m thrilled to have a 5 minute drive to work instead of an hour bus ride (buses connect downtown, not in the burbs). Of course, those with faith believe that exposure to sub-zero weather and walking along icy surfaces is somehow healthier.”

So he doesn’t like that he would have to wait for two different buses to finally take him to within 1/4 mile of his office, at which point he would have to walk the rest of the way.  Fair enough, I don’t know anyone who would like that.  So how on earth does he think low-density development fixes that problem?  It’s the separation of uses into commercial/residential and the ensuing suburbs that caused that sort of problem.  About the topic of choice: aren’t suburbs the epitome of low to no choices?  they’re so low-development and so single-use that there is no choice.

Does “Faith Based City Planning” imply that we should turn over our will to God because he/she/it will plan our cities for us or that city planners think they are God…and we should have faith in them… because they know what’s best for us?

Jason, Wytold is harping on his talking point, “public-private” NOT market based only. Market based only  to me would mean exclusively private, right? That is NOT what Wytolds tired ‘idea’ is all about.. He’s  been saying that for a while, public-private, public private, and to that I say, yawn, so what else is new? 

to the prefurbia concept of private only (I fail to see how his program suddenly yields hiterto unknown  (???) curvy roads and open space) I say, is to laugh..Most cities in the world are developed by private enterprise almost exclusively.

I don’t see how the planners have some sort of stranglehold on design that you perceive..Perhaps  your own personal whities need to be less tight.

As far as I can tell, market dicates development as much as it wants to, otherwise we would not get the burgeoning Dubai in the desert with no water, the suburbanization of the central valley of california – need I go on..

You seem to really have a thing about people trying to control  you..You already mentioned the governments “stranglehold’ on the banks – to which I say, ???

Government has been cowed by business, in america – we don’t regulate off shore oil drilling and so get the Gulf disaster, we don’t recycle, can’t clean the Chesapeake (failure of stormwater regs scandal).

Since the days when your fair city was laid out by L’Enfant, since Olmsted set aside those 800 vaunted acres of marshland way  north of Manhattan’s density, planning has become nothing but a water-carrier for market forces. The City of Charlottesville PAID the OMNI hotel developers to put their stupid hotel at the end of the mall, and were never paid back..Where is the ‘stranglehold”?

Really, where, Jason? I am interested in your answer….

I agree.  Private forces largely drive development, and it tends to be the same old same old suburban style that gets implemented.  In my opinion, it’s only because of “new” municipal policies asking for some mixed use, or slightly smaller lot sizes to accommodate slightly more density, that even a bare minimum of choice and diversity has been incorporated into the suburban landscape.  

I don’t see how this type of development results in less infrastructure costs, unless people will be using grey water harvesting systems and septic tanks and generating their own power…unless you are talking about changing existing dense urban neighbourhoods into a more permeable environment by removing paving and adding green infrastructure to reduce the load on grey infrastructure.