KyleEzellGetUrban said:
You're absolutely right, most parents won't wait for good schools and they don't have time to commit their entire lives to such a cause. It is the same with city lovers-- most want to enjoy raging urban energy NOW, and want Manhattan and San Francisco instead of Topeka, and don't have the will to devote their lives and souls to save empty downtowns. City issues are tough indeed, and I sure didn't mean to imply criticism because I believe that everyone has the right to choose what's best for them. Just remember, the primary focus is for boomers and young folks without kids--they will be more willing to move to urban areas than those with young children. (go ahead and write your book!)
Having not read your book, I can only go off of comments made in this forum. However, I will note that even boomers and young folks without kids tend to buy housing in a good school district, as their preference, and will buy a 3 bedroom house when they do not need 3 bedrooms simply because re-sale value is higher and it is easier to sell if they need to move. In my opinion, one of the things eating up our cities is the antiquated behemoth housing industry, which grew out of the needs and goals of post WWII realities that no longer exist.
The guys came home from war and had VA benefits, people had a lot of money in the bank due to the war (2 incomes, no kids, no way to have a kid with hubby overseas fighting, and damn little to spend it on due to war-time rationing) and these people had been living in The Great Depression a mere 4 years before. Thus was born Levittowns and the present mortgage industry, tax breaks on mortgage interest, and on and on -- ALL of it geared towards making it easier for families to buy suburban homes. It is incredibly difficult to finance anything other than a suburban house. Fight that battle and win it and I think you can quit fighting the battle to get people to move to the city: they will go when it becomes easier for "ordinary" people to do it without "fighting city hall" or fighting the tide, etc.
What ails cities runs deep and it is essentially the hauntings of a ghost from our past. Most folks have yet to wake up to what is Real for the Here and Now and they walk around in a haze of memories of their childhood and some totally unrealistic fantasy that those antiquated policies, which are such an albatross around our neck as a nation, OUGHT to work-- and they continue to Tweak them because they just can't come to grips with the Truth that they need to be scrapped entirely, in many cases.
I have not yet heard you say anything of real substance as to HOW cities can be helped to be reborn. So far, your book sounds like an ad campaign trying to brainwash people into living in cities because you like them and it would benefit you, personally, if more folks would go along with your desire to have a lively downtown. I have every intention of buying property in or near the old downtown of the city I live in and creating a live-work situation. I believe in the need for real communities and I think that is what you are really talking about, in a round-about way. Where you have a real community, you have a lively atmosphere. But, merely getting more numbers of people into a certain geographic area does not make for a lively downtown because it does not, in and of itself, create a community. Community is something which occurs amongst people. Infrastructure can support the creation of community or undermine the creation of community but infrastructure in and of itself cannot make a community. People and only people make communities, which is why you can have an online community, such as Cyburbia.
I have many years experience in promoting a sense of community in organizations and I began bringing that wealth of experience, skill, and talent to online communities about 4 years ago. At some point, I decided that I wanted to bring my eye for "what makes a community work" to urban planning and apply it to The Built Environment because I think that my people-centered focus is lacking in much of the decision-making processes which lead our cities and towns and so forth to be so empty and "dead".
I really have no desire to bust your chops. You did kind of say "bring it on". I hope you meant that. My intro to this forum was a "trial by fire" and I knew what I was in for because of the way I jumped into the middle of a controversial conversation. I have found it to be enriching to get feedback as to what I am doing "right" and what I am doing "wrong" and I don't villify people for reacting negatively to me under such circumstances. I genuinely hope you will take my comments as "feedback", which is their intended purpose. Just as I set myself up to be a 'target' by the way I joined this group, I think the way you joined and began immediately hawking your book also set you up as a "target". However, Mae West always said "There is no such thing as "bad" pubilicity". And that has been my personal experience as well: nothing attracts attention like a good controversy or something gossippy or a good Firestorm. It gets people to talking.
In the spirit of one future author to someone who is already a published author and with gratitude for a chance to participate in a really interesting conversation,
Michele