A century later: the car, the city

[BKM]

I've yet to see any progress that so much as lives up to what was accomplished in Belle-Époque Paris.

What was accomplished in Belle-Epoque Paris was the wholesale demolition of organic, historic townhouses by THE GOVERNMENT to expedite real estate speculation and to enable easier control of the populace. I'm not denying the problems with medieval remnants, but I thought you libertarians disliked heavy handed government intervention. Haussman was like a combination of Robert Moses and the Kelo case. He may have had much much better taste and a better architectural langguage and tradition to work with, but...Is it simply that, like many libertarians, you have no problem with arbitrary power, as long as it isn't DEMOCRATIC "political" arbitrary power?

Rich folks always get the new stuff first. That benz motor-wagen wasn't exactly cheap in its time. Today you can get a 5000$ Chinese-made Geely car that has almost all of the technical improvements that new model Benz does. Why couldn't we bring boulevard Paris to the poor?

Who wants to live in such a setting? WQhat sells here (that precious free market) cul de sac lots, "exclusive" subdivisions" Outside a very few metropolitan areas. And, even in those areas, (i.e., the Bay Area) the prevalent opinion is "I don't want to live in an apartment." "I can't raise a family in a townhouse, I need a rancher and a yard and a neighborhood of people identical to myself." Your hero Neil Silverman certainly doesn't post a Statist Paris in nhis libertarian future. It's nothing but totally privatized gated suburbs everywhere you look.

And that's where the hole in the theory shows up. Affordable working class suburbia was completely artificial. There was never any such thing. It was a government program from the begginning.

Again-you don't get it. "Government" is not some outside alien force imposed from above. The persons and forces controlling capital in this country pushed this idea (Roger Rabit, anyone ) They saw every man in his castle as a bulwark against "socialism" a la Europe. And, they saw a lot of profit.

And it wasn't later that we knew it was bad. Lewis Mumford was ranting about it back in the 1950s when it was just getting started. Jane Jacobs was ranting about it in the 1960s. We're still ranting about it, and it's still being built.

A few New York intellectuals and NIMBYs don't speak for very many people, not when there is money to be made and comfortable, suburban privacy to be had.

Why were they allowed to do that? To destroy a city that people loved and replace it with a city that people hated? Who allowed such a thing?

Who says most people "hate" their current City? A noisome cold water flat with ancient wiring and plumbing surrounded by loud nieighbors and cooking smells versus a nice new bungalow or rancher? The myth that one can live "in the country." Instead of riding on a crowded bus or walking an hour, a nice, easy drive in your own private automobile, Most people-especially people with familes, are not as ascetic as jordanb

The reality is that there is no such thing as an unplanned city. Cities and their infrastructure don't occur by natural accident. They are purposefully built by people. Someone is planning them, even if they are doing it with absolutely no thought and completely random purposes. We have chaos on our hands because no one knows what objectives should be followed.

OK. But, more importantly, I think there is serious confusion as to what those outcomes should or can be. The modern city has occurred because your precious profit can be easily squeezed from it. Government is a tool of the market, not an evil outside force. Most governments very much consider profit, because the people running most local governments are tied very directly to such issues.

[jaws]

I thought the free market was your mantra, Jaws. The car triumphed because people wanted it. Boulevard-life Paris is incompatible with cars (just look to recent efforts at making central Paris car-free, and barring that it is very clear that such a place has little need for mass use of the automobile). To blame urban planners now is very interesting, and especially so when arguing about just what an urban planner is.

The car triumphed because people wanted it. Boulevard Paris continues to triumph because people want it. Paris is one of the world's favorite tourist destinations, and the boulevards, despite having been considerably expensive investments in their time, continue to pay back the city. So what does that say? How do we know what people want better, cars or boulevard apartments? We know that we can't have both, as you say, because there are only so many cars you can allow into Paris. But how do we decide which we should have?

Jaws please stop attacking the messenger. Planners are not the one you should be directing your obvious distaste to, we are products of a very complicated system. Planners to provide an essential service in cutting through red tape and apathy (at least I do). We would like nothing more than to see the red tape go away so we can focus on doing the stuff we all went into public service for.

A planner is there to provide information and focus their clients on options that make a good solution. We reccomend, but we do not approve.

I am not attacking the messenger. I am the messenger. What do you think I've been trying to do all this time? You can never cut the red tape while in the public service. The public service requires red tape to function at all. If you want to make a difference, if you want your work to really matter, take my side.

No one stands to gain more than the professionals here if my proposal becomes reality.

What was accomplished in Belle-Epoque Paris was the wholesale demolition of organic, historic townhouses by THE GOVERNMENT to expedite real estate speculation and to enable easier control of the populace. I'm not denying the problems with medieval remnants, but I thought you libertarians disliked heavy handed government intervention. Haussman was like a combination of Robert Moses and the Kelo case. He may have had much much better taste and a better architectural langguage and tradition to work with, but...Is it simply that, like many libertarians, you have no problem with arbitrary power, as long as it isn't DEMOCRATIC "political" arbitrary power?

Although I am against the power of eminent domain, it is irrelevant to this issue. Eminent domain has been used at every opportunity through the past century, and the result has always been more junk. I will fault Haussmann and his successors for employing Eminent Domain, but that makes them no different than all the others who followed, except on one critical point. What they produced wasn't junk and should have been emulated by competing cities. Why wasn't it?

To paraphrase Leon Krier (I don't remember the exact quote) what makes a city "historic" is not its age, but the maturity of its character. Destroying old townhouses to create the boulevards did not hurt Paris, it made it great. It made it the greatest city of its time. It made it an instantly historic place that the citizens of Paris have been fighting hard to protect against corrupt politicians ever since.

Who wants to live in such a setting? WQhat sells here (that precious free market) cul de sac lots, "exclusive" subdivisions" Outside a very few metropolitan areas. And, even in those areas, (i.e., the Bay Area) the prevalent opinion is "I don't want to live in an apartment." "I can't raise a family in a townhouse, I need a rancher and a yard and a neighborhood of people identical to myself." Your hero Neil Silverman certainly doesn't post a Statist Paris in nhis libertarian future. It's nothing but totally privatized gated suburbs everywhere you look.

Who says most people "hate" their current City? A noisome cold water flat with ancient wiring and plumbing surrounded by loud nieighbors and cooking smells versus a nice new bungalow or rancher? The myth that one can live "in the country." Instead of riding on a crowded bus or walking an hour, a nice, easy drive in your own private automobile, Most people-especially people with familes, are not as ascetic as jordanb

I have no idea who Neil Silverman is. If you want a hero of liberalism and urbanism, you should take a look at Bill Bonner. He writes the updates for dailyreckoning.com. He founded a company called Agora Publishing in the late 70's and set up shop in downtown Baltimore at a time where everybody was fleeing the place. His business was critical to the revival of the area.

I have to severely criticize you for taking what people say they want as some kind of evidence of what they actually want. There is a concept in economics called "revealed preference" which means that the actual preference of people can only be expressed through their action. People may say they want a yard and single-family home all else being equal, there are other factors at play in their decision. If what they are picturing is the bleak landscape of Los Angeles when you say apartment or townhouse, they will tell you they want none of it. If you tell them they can have a Parisian apartment, they might rethink their decision.

The important fact to understand is that people can't know what they want until they see what can be offered to them. Imagine it's the 80's, and we're a government agency thinking of offering laser eye surgery. The politicians in charge tell us to poll people to see what the demand for it is. So we run a poll with the question "Would you like to have laser eye surgery?" The results of the poll come in at 90% for "Are you crazy, I'm not letting a laser anywhere near my eye!!!" How could people know? Fortunately there was a small group of elite eye surgeons who saw the potential and knew that people would pay a lot of money to undergo the surgery if they could make it work. They did and now the operation is total normality.

Do people prefer single-family houses? That can only be determined comparatively. As I said in the other thread if someone prefers both single-family houses and Midtown Manhattan he will have to make a choice between the two.

Again-you don't get it. "Government" is not some outside alien force imposed from above. The persons and forces controlling capital in this country pushed this idea (Roger Rabit, anyone ) They saw every man in his castle as a bulwark against "socialism" a la Europe. And, they saw a lot of profit.

OK. But, more importantly, I think there is serious confusion as to what those outcomes should or can be. The modern city has occurred because your precious profit can be easily squeezed from it. Government is a tool of the market, not an evil outside force. Most governments very much consider profit, because the people running most local governments are tied very directly to such issues.

Politicians always see a lot of profit for themselves. What you don't get is that there are more capitalists hurt from the system than there are who gain from it! How many billionaire urban property developers have been run out of business because of sprawl? How many have never come to be? Politics hurts everyone. The use of political power hurts everyone. You cannot blame rich people for it, it is only natural for rich people to leverage their wealth to gain political power as long as this power exists.

Every man in his castle wasn't a bulwark against socialism, it was socialism! They conned you, big time.

There is no profit to be made from the city, and that's why it's a wreck! There is only profit to be made corrupting the city's political organization, which is what you claim is a "tool of the market." Government is the exact opposite of the market. See what is the free market. Government is the use of coercion. Money can be used to buy coercion, but it is not the market, it is only corruption. Until you see that, you are hopeless. You cannot know who your enemy is.

It is wrong to believe that "most governments very much consider profit." Unlike a private owner politicians have no way to tap the gains in capital that they generate from their action. It is therefore pointless for them to do what is best for the community. They will do what is best for themselves first, at the expense of the community as a whole. In economics lingo they have extremely short time-preference towards their estate since they only control it temporarily.

You will never have the right to blame the market for the wreck that is the city until the city is a market. As long as we cannot buy and sell a boulevard on the market we will have no way to determine what such a property is worth, and whether that is what people actually prefer. And there lies the entire secret of the degeneration of the city. We don't know what it's worth!

[BKM]

The car triumphed because people wanted it. Boulevard Paris continues to triumph because people want it. Paris is one of the world's favorite tourist destinations, and the boulevards, despite having been considerably expensive investments in their time, continue to pay back the city. So what does that say? How do we know what people want better, cars or boulevard apartments? We know that we can't have both, as you say, because there are only so many cars you can allow into Paris. But how do we decide which we should have?

The French have a culture more tolerant of apartment living. Why is "apartment" a French word, while the germanic roots of "house" and "home" are self-evident.

Some people want it. Many people want it. San Francisco is amazingly expensive. But, don't forget that the hundreds of square miles of suburban sprawl around Paris are not all high rise social housing. There's plenty of tracts of "pavillions" and villa suburbs. Especially for the middle class. Heck, suburban France even prefersw....gasp....malls and hypermarkets over the cute boulevard boucher. Tourists and heavy State intervention keep many French city centers going.

I am not attacking the messenger. I am the messenger. What do you think I've been trying to do all this time? You can never cut the red tape while in the public service. The public service requires red tape to function at all. If you want to make a difference, if you want your work to really matter, take my side.

Your Murray Rothbard sig line is to me not a dig, but an acknowledgement of the benefits of bureaucracy.

Your "side" shows an amazing lack of understanding of history and the way things work. Why would we take your side???

What they produced wasn't junk and should have been emulated by competing cities. Why wasn't it?

You contradict yourself. One moment, Parisian bouelvards are the be all and end all of urbanism. When we remind you nhow they were created, you backpedal. An oppressive, centralized State with a monarch providing the backing explains how they were able to implement such a grand vision. Along with a far better architecture language than mid-century modernism

To paraphrase Leon Krier (I don't remember the exact quote) what makes a city "historic" is not its age, but the maturity of its character. Destroying old townhouses to create the boulevards did not hurt Paris, it made it great

.

For the haute bourgeoisie who moved in, perhaps. I doubt the thousands of people uprooted were quite as sanguine.

If you tell them they can have a Parisian apartment, they might rethink their decision.

I doubt it. ON the whole, the English certainly don't.

Every man in his castle wasn't a bulwark against socialism, it was socialism! They conned you, big time.

I would probably agree with you. I remain totally unconvinced by the practicality and reality of the rest of your libertarian claptrap, and its late, so...

[jaws]

The French have a culture more tolerant of apartment living. Why is "apartment" a French word, while the germanic roots of "house" and "home" are self-evident.

Some people want it. Many people want it. San Francisco is amazingly expensive. But, don't forget that the hundreds of square miles of suburban sprawl around Paris are not all high rise social housing. There's plenty of tracts of "pavillions" and villa suburbs. Especially for the middle class. Heck, suburban France even prefersw....gasp....malls and hypermarkets over the cute boulevard boucher. Tourists and heavy State intervention keep many French city centers going.

For the haute bourgeoisie who moved in, perhaps. I doubt the thousands of people uprooted were quite as sanguine.

I doubt it. ON the whole, the English certainly don't.

State intervention does not keep Paris going. Paris had to be protected from state intervention by its citizens when the socialist wrecking crew started going to work on it. They got what they wanted in the suburbs, sprawl, like everywhere else in the modern world. It's therefore incorrect to say that the suburban french prefer hypermarkets, because it is not offered on the free market. It is the same government-built sprawl system as everywhere else. In fact the reality of Paris is that regular people live in the suburbs because the city itself has become an enclave for the rich and is completely unaffordable to the common mortal.

You also cannot make a decision about what the bourgeoisie or the proletariat or the english truly want. Only preference expressed in the free market can validly reflect such a want.

Your Murray Rothbard sig line is to me not a dig, but an acknowledgement of the benefits of bureaucracy.

Your "side" shows an amazing lack of understanding of history and the way things work. Why would we take your side???

My sig line is meant to educate, not to attack anyone. Why was zoning adopted as the primary tool of city planning? Because a bureaucratic system requires clear rules to operate, and zoning is a convenient set of rules.

You should take my side because the city has been completely ruined (in some places abolished entirely) in the past century, and I'm the only one who can fully explain why. That means I'm also the only one who can advance a solution that will actually succeed. The same solution that provided us the advanced Mercedes and Geely will provide us the advanced city.

If this were a hundred years ago and we were having this discussion at a café on Boulevard de Sébastopol then you would be entirely justified to call me a nut, but the situation has degenerated so far that you have absolutely no defense to make of the system. Your whole defense is saying that I'm crazy libertarian claptrap, backed by no arguments.

How is the system that ruined the city supposed to be its salvation? It is a completely childish and irrational belief.

You contradict yourself. One moment, Parisian bouelvards are the be all and end all of urbanism. When we remind you nhow they were created, you backpedal. An oppressive, centralized State with a monarch providing the backing explains how they were able to implement such a grand vision. Along with a far better architecture language than mid-century modernism

I know you're trying to back me into an "ends justifies the means" position, but I'm not going to bite. The ends can be evaluated on their own merits, and the means to achieve them as well. The boulevard was a commercially successful, valid end. The midcentury urban renewal projects that the socialist wrecking crew advanced were not. All were accomplished through eminent domain, an unjustifiable mean. However they could still have been accomplished without eminent domain, therefore the use of eminent domain is exogenous to the issue.

Your position is tantamount to saying that the Pyramids of Egypt or the Collisseum in Rome are awful because slave labor was used to build them. It's two different issues.

[vaughan]

Good lord, how much time do you have on your hands?

I don't have that much, so I haven't read everything as thouroughly as I could, but here's my first and only question:

Come to a place where there is very little regulation (like where I live). It's the same sprawling mess that you see around every city that is growing quickly.

Why is the market (and freed design professionals) not better directing growth?

The constant threads attacking planners is getting tiresome...

[BKM]

Your position is tantamount to saying that the Pyramids of Egypt or the Collisseum in Rome are awful because slave labor was used to build them. It's two different issues.

When the primary point of your screeds is the evil of The State and Bureuacracy-versus your precious libertarian utopia of pure market forces, then comments upon your internal contradictions is appropriate-and amusing.

[teshadoh]

How about a simple theory - people stopped caring. As long as we had 'our stuff' (tvs, cars, etc...) nothing else mattered.

[jaws]

When the primary point of your screeds is the evil of The State and Bureuacracy-versus your precious libertarian utopia of pure market forces, then comments upon your internal contradictions is appropriate-and amusing.

It is not a contradiction, you are confused out of your mind. The two issues are completely separate from one another. By this reasoning were I to steal all your money and give it away to a charity, you would then attack anyone who supports charitable organizations.

How about a simple theory - people stopped caring. As long as we had 'our stuff' (tvs, cars, etc...) nothing else mattered.

But people never cared. People don't know anything about this issue. They live their life trying to make an honest living in the field of specialization that they have chosen. That's always been true and will always be true. You can't demand of non-urbanists that they become proficient and discriminating in this manner. It is not possible.

Any field that requires any amount of specialization, which urban planning conforms to, can only be lead by its own elites. There's no public debate over how the steel industry or the car industry ought to be run. How could there be? Who has any freakin' clue how this stuff is made outside of a few japanese guys? We bought a LCD tv the other day on sale. We have absolutely no idea how it works or how it was made, or how much it cost to make. It might as well be fueled by magic. We just bought it because we liked it. It was effortless on our part.

Stop blaming the regular people for the failure of this specialized field. The blame lies either with the professionals, or with the system. I have been repeating over and over that it's the system that is wrong. All the information about what makes a good city is available. The reason we can't do it is the reason everyone here has been indirectly blaming: politics.

I don't have that much, so I haven't read everything as thouroughly as I could, but here's my first and only question:

Come to a place where there is very little regulation (like where I live). It's the same sprawling mess that you see around every city that is growing quickly.

Why is the market (and freed design professionals) not better directing growth?

The constant threads attacking planners is getting tiresome...

You really should take a deeper look at my arguments because you have completely misunderstood me. Firstly I am not attacking planners, I am trying to give you more freedom! I know this place is full of good people who would like nothing else than to do good work for good people, but they face a bureaucratic and political monster preventing them to act.

Secondly I have not argued for less regulation. In fact at every point I have argued for more regulation! This whole debacle of the 20th century has been a failure to regulate. The problem is not that cities regulate, because all properties must be regulated by their owners. The problem is that without the market to guide them, the regulations make absolutely no sense. They are established by engineers who have no business interfering in a business they know nothing about, or pulled out of someone's butt, or worse. And the fact that there is no market in place means that the regulations must be established as bureaucratic law. There is no way to bureaucratize art, which is what urbanism is fundamentally about. Ablarc advanced this argument better than I when he referred to urbanism being taken over by the "numbers people."

This is a business. The goods produced are the roads and the streets. You can't do anything you want with these goods. That would just be chaos, and your deregulated area is exactly that. If you do not enforce property rights on a valuable property, you get a tragedy of the commons scenario where everyone races everyone else to ruin the place. The most run-down places are always publicly owned for exactly that reason.

[teshadoh]

jaws - But wasn't there at least some historical concept of the 'community'? Either it be a rural township, a small town or an urban neighborhood - there was a greater communal fellowship that existed. Particularly in rural areas, and particularly further in history to Medieval times, the community was the primary foundation for people's lives - most likely because people depended on one another in that time.

A lot of the ideas I am thinking of are purely fictional, such as 'Little House on the Prairie' or 'Mayberry' (not the best examples I know), but even if it has been romanticized there was in the past a greater sense of BELONGING. People belonged to the land they farmed, they belonged to the mill town they worked in, they belonged to the town they owned a business in.

None of that is relevant anymore, we are free to choose - therefore we choose ourselves.

[jaws]

jaws - But wasn't there at least some historical concept of the 'community'? Either it be a rural township, a small town or an urban neighborhood - there was a greater communal fellowship that existed. Particularly in rural areas, and particularly further in history to Medieval times, the community was the primary foundation for people's lives - most likely because people depended on one another in that time.

A lot of the ideas I am thinking of are purely fictional, such as 'Little House on the Prairie' or 'Mayberry' (not the best examples I know), but even if it has been romanticized there was in the past a greater sense of BELONGING. People belonged to the land they farmed, they belonged to the mill town they worked in, they belonged to the town they owned a business in.

People are still looking for community, but they aren't finding it in the corrupt government-provided cities. They end up perfect victims for megachurches scooping up the faithful by rocking up Jesus every Sunday, or if they're unlucky, mall rats.

They also love their homes. They identify with them. From where I stand home improvement magazines are more popular than celebrity gossip, and the home improvement warehouse megastores are filled with shoppers. You blame the collapse of the city on the fact that people don't care anymore, that they prefer to watch DVDs of Big Momma's House instead of participating in local democracy. I have an alternative explanation. People don't participate in local democracy because it is pointless. They are powerless to do anything about it. The political machine is too big, the bureaucracy is a juggernaut, and the concepts involved are comprehensible only to a select few members of a specialized discipline. They express this sense of powerlessness by withdrawing into the areas of their lives that they actually can control, their own homes, and defend this turf with all their might.

None of that is relevant anymore, we are free to choose - therefore we choose ourselves.

Choosing ourselves is not incompatible to choosing to work to improve the community. The problem is that it must be possible to do so. People will not spend their energy and time in a futile fight against a bureaucratic monster. They want to see results at the end of the day, and as the saying goes you can't fight city hall.

Because of this we are not free to choose. This is what I keep repeating. This is why we live in a ruin.

[jaws]

I had an epiphany today. It came to me, this is what our cars would be like if they were built the same way our cities are planned.



Ridiculous, dysfunctional and horribly over budget.

[Luca]

Good one Jaws. I did like your opening post on this thread, showing the evolution of cars and involution of cities. I don't think the analogy is entirely correct or that your prescritption is entirely practical/empirically based but I did enjoy it.

I definitely think that a grass-roots 'privatization' of small elements of public space is the way to go in the quest for better run / run more like a business cities but as you knwo from other threads I do think there is a considerable space for the public sector.

If you haven't read it, here's some ammo for you. In Suburban Nation, Duany recalls an event in which a developer of a large subdivision stopped his car, noticed a bent sprinkler head, called the head of maintenance to have it fixed that same day. Duany pointed out that if Mayors acted that way (in all aspects) there would be fewer gated communities / flight to the burbs.

I suppose that i aprtly agree with your critique of 'demoracy' in the sense that it ahs sometime devolved into a sort of inane populairty/special interest contest. I think the break-down point comes when poeple who are recipients of state money (as emploees or social-spending recipients) are one of the key ovting blocks: tehr esult is generally poor. Perhaps voting should be limited to people whio are net contributors to the public purse. In the 'victorian' period this as functionally the case and the results were better run communities. This may smack of elitism, but in fact it is a sort of meritocracy (as long as you accept that most peole can be voters under 'my' system).

[BKM]

Cities are NOT businesses. Especially not North American businesses which are run only to make the latest quarterly report look good so the CEO can get a big bonus before the whole shebang is sold to the next conglomerate headquartered three thousand miles away.

If you haven't read it, here's some ammo for you. In Suburban Nation, Duany recalls an event in which a developer of a large subdivision stopped his car, noticed a bent sprinkler head, called the head of maintenance to have it fixed that same day. Duany pointed out that if Mayors acted that way (in all aspects) there would be fewer gated communities / flight to the burbs.

Come on, Luca. Do you really believe this? Anecdotally, this sounds great. But, this is NOT typical for the developers we deal with-especially after the development is sold off, and the Western Division of DRX Homes, a wholly owned subsidiarof Megalobuild Limited, headquartered in Dallas, is out of town. Even though we get multiple telephone calls from homeowners unhappy that their houses are leaking, the irrigation systems are flooding the street, and the trees are all dead. It's like pulling teeth to get them to even live up to the basic conditions of apprval.

I suppose that i aprtly agree with your critique of 'demoracy' in the sense that it ahs sometime devolved into a sort of inane populairty/special interest contest. I think the break-down point comes when poeple who are recipients of state money (as emploees or social-spending recipients) are one of the key ovting blocks: tehr esult is generally poor. Perhaps voting should be limited to people whio are net contributors to the public purse. In the 'victorian' period this as functionally the case and the results were better run communities. This may smack of elitism, but in fact it is a sort of meritocracy (as long as you accept that most peole can be voters under 'my' system).

Ridiculous. What is the historical backing to your claim that cities run by Victorian elites were so superior? What is your definition of "superior"? Superior for whom-and at what cost to the majority?

Plus, given the structure of subsidies in our current economy, I'm curious as to how many of the elites that you think will better run our cities or nation states really do "deserve" this role you are willing to assign them. It seems like a lot of these "productive" people and companies sure get a lot of public subsisides. Halliburton, oil companies, defense contractors,. (at the local level) road pavers, regional subdivision builders, big box stores-all getting subtle, sometimes hidden (but often not) subsidies and special breaks. Beleive me, these powerful forces will not be giving up their position.

[CosmicMojo]

In the 'victorian' period this as functionally the case and the results were better run communities.

There weren't better run communities in the Victorian age. There was a much deeper divide between the haves and the have nots, which may have resulted in well kept elite neighborhoods where the wealthy lived in seclusion and oblivion, but much of the city was full of abject poverty and deplorable living conditions. People got sick from raw sewerage running down gutters, tenements didn't have heat or running water, on and on. Maybe it seemed fine to the ruling class, but that is just because they were in total denial about the living conditions of most of the city.

Families lived in tight quarters, accommodations for the poor was in old decriped housing. There was widespread dampness, and most houses were under-ventilated and overcrowded, with rooms sub-let to lodgers. There was no drainage, sewerage, running water or flush toilets. Streams were like an open sewer and the stench was repulsive. Privies (earth closets) were shared between many families and they overflowed into yards and even houses. The Victorian city was a city of startling contrasts. New building and affluent development went hand in hand with horribly overcrowded slums where people lived in the worst conditions imaginable.

The communities weren't better run, they were just very good at ignoring the poverty and deplorable living conditions on the other side of town. Anyone read Dickens or Disraeli?

[Luca]

Just a quick riposte:

BKM > Some businesses are run poorly, especially ones wher you can sell and up stakes, but the anecdote is powerful in the sense that local 'ownership' (whether corprorate or lcoal small community) is more liekly to have that eye for detail.

On the Victorian thing: I was referring to certain aspects of late victorian society as they applied to city living, not the shape of scoeity as a whole. Specifically, I was referring to the massively lower incidence of vandalism and serious crime; the large public and semi-private investment in infrastructure and civic amenities, the high employment rate, etc.

My point is: are large/medium-sized cities better run (qua cities, which only control limited aspects of life) by shrill 'entitlement advocates' and rabble rosuing populists or by the enlightened bougeoisie? Do teh cops work to keep upstandign citizens safe or to keep presusr egroups off their back? Is trash collected no matter what or is it a war between the unions and city hall? etc.

I PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE- in North America most major museums are run as charities/trusts. They are run by fairly autocratic/elitist committees made up of the 'great and the good'. This is because a large portion of thir finding is voluntary. I think on the whoel tehy are well run, repsonsive to tehir public and ivnentive in ways to keep up quality within moentary cosntraints. Comarpe that to teh typcial city's uniponized city departments. Wastful, unresponsive, poor quality and relly resevoirs of votes for dirty politicians. Which model do you think works better?

[BKM]

Just a quick riposte:

BKM > Some businesses are run poorly, especially ones wher you can sell and up stakes, but the anecdote is powerful in the sense that local 'ownership' (whether corprorate or local small community) is more likely to have that eye for detail.

A reasonable argument. My argument is that private ownership today generally means large corporations, and I am unsure that said corporations do have that eye for detail. At least, not when they are not forced to do so by the evil government planners.

On the Victorian thing: I was referring to certain aspects of late Victorian society as they applied to city living, not the shape of society as a whole. Specifically, I was referring to the massively lower incidence of vandalism and serious crime; the large public and semi-private investment in infrastructure and civic amenities, the high employment rate, etc.

OK. I'm not sure that the crime rates in some large industrial cities were that much lower, but I don't have time to google it to confirm this impression/sense of things. Anyone?

I would argue theoretically that the greater investment in infrastructure reflects:

1. A society more tied to manufacturing things, producing real things. Today, our city economies are devoted to the ephemeral: Entertainment, "culture" and ever more arcane financial manipulations and casino operations (London?) Throw in the litigation explosion and (I'll grant you one) exceissve regulations, and there just isn't the interest in producing this infrastructure.

2. An ideology that denies the value of said infrastructure and civic amenities, in favor of the ever more luxurious private life. Particularly as the population has decamped for arcadian suburbia. Instead, we build as cheaply as possible. If we can hole up in our "media rooms" and send our kids to private play places, why do we need beautiful parks and other infrastructure?

3. An archittctural style not conducive to great public amenities.

My point is: are large/medium-sized cities better run (qua cities, which only control limited aspects of life) by shrill 'entitlement advocates' and rabble rosuing populists or by the enlightened bougeoisie? Do teh cops work to keep upstandign citizens safe or to keep presusr egroups off their back? Is trash collected no matter what or is it a war between the unions and city hall? etc.

Interesting argument. But, the business class still largely runs almost major American city (a few crazy enclaves aside ) The history of the 19th century city shows things were run as smoothly as you think. An awful lot of corruption going on! But OK. My only response would be "enlightened for whom"? The rabble rousers arose to power for a reason: a large part of the population felt they were shut out.

I PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE- in North America most major museums are run as charities/trusts. They are run by fairly autocratic/elitist committees made up of the 'great and the good'. This is because a large portion of thir finding is voluntary. I think on the whole they are well run, responsive to their public and inventive in ways to keep up quality within monetary cosntraints. Compare that to the typical cial city's uniponized city departments. Wastful, unresponsive, poor quality and relly resevoirs of votes for dirty politicians. Which model do you think works better?

Comparing apples and oranges. I could point out the many well-run smaller cities and even larger cities and compare them to the increasingly atrocious private corporations that are basically selling the American economy down the river, but this comparison really doesn't mean much.

[jaws]

Cities are NOT businesses.

Yes they are. They provide physical goods, infrastructure and recreational space. They are a business, run unintelligently.

What else could they be but a business? A religion?

Interesting argument. But, the business class still largely runs almost major American city (a few crazy enclaves aside ) The history of the 19th century city shows things were run as smoothly as you think. An awful lot of corruption going on!

There still hasn't been any work done on the WTC reconstruction two years after the project was announced ready to be launched. The reason is the stranglehold of the public Port Authority's bureaucracy preventing all actions by business class developer Larry Silverstein. Don't pretend that business classes run American cities. Most American cities are just ruins.

Don't look back into the 19th century American cities either. America was nothing until the 20th century. It never really had good urbanism, or much urban planning at all. In fact urbanism in America was highly politicized from the beggining, which is the reason why the 19th century city has such a bad rep in America.

All the great cities of this period are in Europe.

[BKM]

Don't look back into the 19th century American cities either. America was nothing until the 20th century. It never really had good urbanism, or much urban planning at all. In fact urbanism in America was highly politicized from the beggining, which is the reason why the 19th century city has such a bad rep in America.

All the great cities of this period are in Europe.

That's a little harsh, no? NO great American cities built during the 19th centur4y? And, European cities were not "politicized" during the pre-modern era?

[jaws]

That's a little harsh, no? NO great American cities built during the 19th centur4y? And, European cities were not "politicized" during the pre-modern era?

What's so shocking about that? The literature is full of comments about the dirty, grimy, awful industrial American cities making people love the suburbs. I'm just repeating the common knowledge.

Europe during the 19th century was monarchical or imperial. England, the exception, was aristocratic. Paris during the reconstruction was imperial. They had politics and people who complained, but the real control of the city was not political.

There's nothing miraculous about democracy.

[BKM]

What's so shocking about that? The literature is full of comments about the dirty, grimy, awful industrial American cities making people love the suburbs. I'm just repeating the common knowledge.

Europe during the 19th century was monarchical or imperial. England, the exception, was aristocratic. Paris during the reconstruction was imperial. They had politics and people who complained, but the real control of the city was not political.

There's nothing miraculous about democracy.

All right, jaws. You just can't keep making these broad, generalized sweeping statements that have no basis in history or reality. Many British and Continental cities were also heavily industrial. Marx and Engells wrote their critiques of capitalism not because they visited Chicago or Philadelphia but because they were experienced with Manchester, and East London, and the Ruhr belt. Berlin was a heavily industrialized, sprawling city. Paris today still has its red belt of industrial "suburbs" immediately north of the City proper. "Satanic mills" were not described in terms of American cities but your precious "aristocratic" British ones.

Second: there may be nothing "miraculous" abotu democracy, but that still doesn't mean I want some idiotic aristocracy lording over me. These aristocracies may create a few beautiful palaces and pleasure grounds (typically for the use of their class only-until the evil democracies started opening them up), but they also engage in empire-building, war profiteering, and the same kinds of things you ding democracies for. 100-year wars. 40-year wars. Vast empires of colonies. Not a pretty picture.

[jaws]

All right, jaws. You just can't keep making these broad, generalized sweeping statements that have no basis in history or reality. Many British and Continental cities were also heavily industrial. Marx and Engells wrote their critiques of capitalism not because they visited Chicago or Philadelphia but because they were experienced with Manchester, and East London, and the Ruhr belt. Berlin was a heavily industrialized, sprawling city. Paris today still has its red belt of industrial "suburbs" immediately north of the City proper. "Satanic mills" were not described in terms of American cities but your precious "aristocratic" British ones.

Marx and Engels were lunatics, their opinion is hardly worth considering. There were plenty of continental intellectuals who praised the industries for providing opportunities to the poor. To quote Gustave de Molinari, "at least our working class works; it does not beg!"

The Paris reconstruction was motivated by the need to reorganize the city for industrialism and deal with overcrowding. They knew the effects of industry on the city and dealt with it. The outcome is still clear. Historic European cities have a much more orderly, more livable form than American cities, which were simply built ad-hoc with no planning. To deny it is historically nonsensical. America was just a rapidly growing frontier during the 19th century, not a nation with highly developed urban culture and institutions. I don't understand why you would pretend otherwise. Is it just national pride?

Second: there may be nothing "miraculous" abotu democracy, but that still doesn't mean I want some idiotic aristocracy lording over me. These aristocracies may create a few beautiful palaces and pleasure grounds (typically for the use of their class only-until the evil democracies started opening them up), but they also engage in empire-building, war profiteering, and the same kinds of things you ding democracies for. 100-year wars. 40-year wars. Vast empires of colonies. Not a pretty picture.

That's not true. The idiotic aristocracies of the 19th century embraced liberalism in their domain because that is what made everyone wealthier and happier. The Austro-Hungarian empire guaranteed the right of citizens to teach their children in their own language. That's what held a vast ethnically heterogenous empire together. After the Austro-Hungarian and German empires collapsed in WWI they were replaced with socialist governments, and soon entire populations were ruined by hyperinflation and turned to fascist dictatorship. They would have been better off run by an aristocracy.

The biggest empires of the early 20th century were, surprise surprise, democracies: England and France. England invented the concentration camp! France fed an entire generation of young men into the trenches. Whatever the monarchies did pales in comparison to what the democracies did.

[BKM]

The biggest empires of the early 20th century were, surprise surprise, democracies: England and France. England invented the concentration camp! France fed an entire generation of young men into the trenches. Whatever the monarchies did pales in comparison to what the democracies did.

I could argue with some of your last post, (I'm less sanguine about the hisotry of aristocratic societies) but I'm afraid this paragraph makes too much sense. As exemplified by the United State's own deluded imperialists and the 70% of the population that basically supports Empire. Heck, we have popular Republican political writers that RIGHT NOW are calling for concentration camps (Michelle Malkin). Note that the guilt is bipartisan. There were no massive graves in Kosovo, the KLA is a drug-smuggling terrorist gang of criminals, the Bosnian government was primarily an expert at political propaganda.

[Samminn]

The difference between the two photographs that initiated this debate, in my opinion, is that the first one is taken where short walkable distances were of real value to the existing urban society. This value created an impetus for short walkable distances in the overall urban form, creating the dense urban pattern that predominated urban development throughout the ages and we can witness in older cities.

The latter picture is taken where short walkable distances have been ruined of their value. The causes are many of those that have been pointed out to in this thread, such as more social affluence, social patterns, altered demographics and technological advances in transportation. By that, short walkable distances lost their value and urban sprawl commenced througout the western world (for both good or bad). Since European cities and older American ones already had a large urban cores with little or no means to accommodate the space car-usage and storage required, they relied more on urban rail to transport people from the newly created suburbs to the job-locations in the inner cities. New ones, with a small or a weak core could more easily accommodate the required storage space car-usage needed. Hence the creation of the automobile depentent cities of the midwest for example.

Whether we can recreate the urban development encompassed in the first picture thus requires an answer to the question: can we make short walkable distances valuable again? How? And through what means?

[jaws]

Whether we can recreate the urban development encompassed in the first picture thus requires an answer to the question: can we make short walkable distances valuable again? How? And through what means?

People always valued short, walkable distances. That is why shopping malls, a privately-controlled walkable public space, conquered the suburbs. Once the government suppressed the construction of walkable environments, private developers found a loophole in the system to provide a limited version of this environment to people. As the industry evolved the shopping mall came to provide more and more services, eventually adding entertainment to shopping, then offices, going outdoors, and with the construction of "lifestyle centers" shopping malls have reclaimed every function of old city.

We know short walkable distances are valuable. Everyone knows that now. The question is why are our means to build the environment failing to recognize this?

[Samminn]

We know short walkable distances are valuable. Everyone knows that now. The question is why are our means to build the environment failing to recognize this?

Now I didn't say that short walkable distances werent valuable, just that they have been stripped of their value in the contemporary urban development. The suburban mall or lifestyle centers do however show us clearly, as you point out, that they are still very valuable and gives us a clue that something isn't right.

Short walkable distances gain value in the suburban malls and the more recent lifestyle centers since it's inner transportation market isn't submitted to external intervention. Its basically a free market system that has found its way to optimise the interaction between transportation and land-use to pay the highest possible rent of the space the mall consumes. By that, it has discovered that the best way to optimise the market is to perceive the pedestrian as the basic mode of transportation. However, the mall must give up a lot of its space for free storage of cars in order to be (besided complying with regulations) competitive inside another transporation market which is NOT represented by the free market and doesn't seek optimisation. It does exactly the opposite. It's a state-controlled market that views the private-automobile as the basic mode of transportation. As a result it demands that its government-controlled auto-transportation system to provide ample service (called Level of Service, or LOS) through legal means which doesn't require the control of demand and doesn't have to pay rent to society for the land it consumes. The government then requires all non-transportation activities to provide storage for this particular means of transportation with little or no degree of freedom of choice. The result is that the real-cost of individual auto-use is consumed by society as a whole, not the end-user himself. This creates the huge market distortion that has, in my opinion, rendered short walkable distances of their value.

Now, the question is perhaps, how can we correct this distortion?