October 27, 2005
Wal-Mart Movie
Posted by Mark C McKnight at 1:57 PM
October 15, 2005
New Orleans and Sustainable Development
Okay I lied about not blogging for a few days. Just came across a piece of news from the Urban Land Institute (link to the right). The ULI will have some involvement with the stupidly-named "Bring New Orleans Back Commission," which should ensure that all the beurocratic nonsense will at least have some positive direction. Whether they follow the reccomendations of the ULI will be another question entirely.
In addition to the advisory panel, ULI is working with its members to develop the Ten Principles for Temporary Communities to help New Orleans and other communities faced with the dilemma of creating temporary homes for its displaced residents. These principles will be based on experiences of other communities that have dealt with natural disasters and other events that have necessitated the creation of temporary housing.Although I don't suggest it, you can read the full article here.
God save New Orleans from the Big Box lobbies, which are more powerful and have much more money than any of the locally-owned small businesses displaced by Katrina. At this time politicians need to look deep within themselves and consider what makes New Orleans unique. There has been much talk lately on public radio and in print about this very question, and one of the most compelling answers revolves around density and its role in creating community.
New Orleans, almost uniquely in the South, is a walkable city. The majority of inner-city residents can (whether they do or not is another question) walk to a corner store, a restaurant or two, and a family member's residence. At the very least, they can walk to a bus or trolley stop. Many of the city's poorest residents have never even owned an automobile, and I have to say they are richer for it.
While many New Orleans residents ended up dying due to their inability to leave the city, I do not follow the argument that "these people died because they were too poor to own cars." What about Manhattan? How many of the people who live on the island and do not own cars can be considered poor? How many of them make some multiple of the median wage in New Orleans?
The problem is not the lack of automobiles but rather the region's dependence on the automobile itself. The availability of cheap oil has led to the suburbanization of the city and the entire Gulf coast. Instead of building regional rail, effective mass transit within the city, and denser developments, too many Southern cities paved their lands with roads, car parks, and superhighways. All very effective if you ignore the cost to the environment and the community.
Because the region has developed in this way, the citizens of New Orleans who did not own cars were denied any efficient regional mass transportation. They had no better options. Where was Amtrak, by the way? I'm not the first to ask this question. See this article in The Nation. Even if everyone in the city had a car, the evacuation would have claimed a few lives. Look at what happened when millions of people evacuated just a week or so later in Texas. It's simply inefficient, unsustainable, and irresponsible to rely on the automobile as it exists today for transportation.
I'm reminding myself of these things as well. I love my Benz, and it's not exactly fuel-efficient. I love the way I don't have to plan trips in advance. I love the air conditioning on full blast on a hot summer day. Hell, I usually have the A/C on with the windows down. But I have moved close enough to work that I now ride my bike. I am in the early stages of planning to purchase a home, and it will be in a dense urban environment. If Chattanooga developers will stop building all these showpiece condo developments in the half-million plus range (I know New Yorkers, that's nothing...) and start building housing for all income levels in the central city, then I will jump in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, low- to mid-income housing projects and mass transit are not economically viable in a purely free-market democracy. Anything regulated for the public good smacks of Socialism and by God we can't have that, can we? Moreover, in a country moving away from family farm ownership, rural landowners are accustomed to cashing in on their land holdings when they sell to developers of big box shopping complexes. My family just did that. It's treated as a birthright. Fortunately, that land is already under strict regulation along New Urbanist principles, so a Wal-Mart willl never replace the land my great-grandparents called home for so many decades.
Until we convince the majority in this country that land usage is not an inalienable right but rather a delicate issue that must be planned (not ZONED) as a community, through dialog, the problems made obvious by Katrina will continue and in fact proliferate. I didn't even mention the environmental question of decreased wetlands, or climate change.
In the long run, we can't afford to stay the course. Americans must come to realize the absolute necessity of denser development. It's a matter of survival, and besides it's a great way to live.
Walk somewhere today. It's good for you. Exchange one errand that you would have done by car with an expedition on foot or riding a bicycle. Meet someone on your way, if you can find anyone else walking.
Sustainable land planners of the world, Unite!
Posted by Mark C McKnight at 10:47 AM
