Does anyone remember that movie about the ad exec who is shipped off to a mental institution when he proposes a “truth in advertising” scheme? Yeah, Crazy People.
Chevrolet decided to do an Apprentice-style contest to advertise their Tahoe SUV. One of the entries was crazy in that particular way. You have to check it out.
Why is it a bad idea to build a parking deck in Piedmont Park?
Why is it a bad idea to widen I-75 to 23 lanes?
Why is it counterproductive to equip transit stations primarily with enormous parking decks?
Why is the eternal chase for traffic mitigation short-sighted?
Why is the typical intown development built by Sembler poorly conceived?
Jane Jacobs had an answer — a warning, if you will — for us more than fifty years ago:
Erosion of cities by automobiles entails so familiar a series of events that they hardly need describing. The erosion proceeds as a kind of nibbling, small nibbles at first, but eventually hefty bites. Because of vehicular congestion, a street is widened here, another is straightened there, a wide avenue is converted to one-way flow, staggered-signal systems are installed for faster movement, a bridge is double-decked as its capacity is reached, an expressway is cut through yonder, and finally whole webs of expressways. More and more land goes into parking, to accomodate the ever increasing numbers of vehicles while they are idle.No one step in this process is, in itself, crucial. But cumulatively the effect is enormous.
…
One seemingly logical step is taken after another, each step plausible and apparently defensible in itself; and the peculiar result is a form of city which is not easier to use and to get around in, but on the contrary more scattered, more cumbersome, more time wasting, expensive and aggravating for cross-use.
– Jane Jacobs, 1961
Cumulatively, by accomodating cars more than people, we shoot ourselves (and our wallets, and our tax bases) in the foot by making our local economies less efficient, and our mobility less secure.
It is unfortunate that what lies in front of our faces, what should be obvious to all of us by now, is so tightly veiled simply because the so-called process of traffic mitigation creeps across many generations.
It appears Sen. Steen Miles from Decatur has sponsored a resolution to honor, of all people, Jane Fonda. According to the AJC, when John Douglas stood up to condemn the resolution, Steen stood up to defend it:
His words provoked a strong response from Miles, who argued that FondaÕs work deserved recognition. She then criticized her fellow lawmakers for not considering enough legislation to help the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Is she nuts? No Democrat in his (or her) right mind would write or sponsor — much less, support — a resolution honoring Jane Fonda unless they specifically wanted to ensure further Democratic losses in the next election cycle.
And this argument she uses to defend the resolution is a huge stretch to make. Honoring someone is just a symbolic gesture, no matter how much bullshit goes into the debate surrounding the resolution. SB 605, which provides for student loans originating from the state is more substantive, and Steen is thankfully listed as a sponsor.
Steen, help your fellow Democrats and highlight some more worthy legislation that you’re sponsoring and back away from this Jane Fonda nonsense. Georgia needs a more effective opposition party than the example you’ve set.
Congratulations to my boss, the March 2006 Lexus Leader of the Arts.
An article on LiveScience, The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don’t Use Them doesn’t hash out anything particularly new on the subject. Though it’s good to be reminded once in a while that the internal locus of control is somewhere out there (or, perhaps, within?), waiting to be discovered. The keys are there in the article: creative activity, shortening your commute, keeping good friends.
The most interesting question in the article is the question of policy implications:
Don’t count on the government, for now, Easterbrook says.Our economy lacks the robustness to sustain policy changes that would bring about more happiness, like reorienting cities to minimize commute times.
I would imagine there are other effective ways to increase happiness in society, which might in turn lead to the reorientation of the Ameriecan urban form:
There are more immediate steps that can be taken as well, but I thought I’d throw out a few ideas.
This quote comes from a NYT article about getting more young people to attend classical music concerts. In this case, a committee of high school students is doing the organizing, as opposed to the traditional top-down approach of attracting young classical music fans.
So, why don’t more young people attend classical concerts?
“They think it’s a boring, outdated art form for senior citizens,” said a boy with shaggy hair and glasses. “The room is filled with old people who click their teeth, sleep through the concert or have their hearing aids going off. And then there’s a break, and they all have to cough.”
