Although a sprite 38 years old, I have one foot grounded in the new world order and one in the remote past...I embrace technology, but I must say that, mostly, it's all worthless.
This morning I rode the bike up Franklin Blvd. with my iPod on, as I usually do. Cell phone was in the front handlebar bag. Cateye bike computer was hammering out speed and mileage...as it's been doing for the past nine years. Technology follows me.
However, none of these things make my ride any more enjoyable. The iPod (and I'm being absolutely honest here) is to guard against hearing loss by all the police and fire sirens up and down Franklin Blvd. They must be 103 dB, designed to alert an Elk Grove thru-commuter in her ultra-quiet Lexus that she should put down her Jimboy's 20-oz soda and pull over...which she will routinely fail to do regardless. Have you ever been walking 10' from a Sac PD siren? Of course you haven't, because pedestrians and bicyclists are immediately cast under suspicion as less-worthy citizens and you the reader aren't a low-class citizen. A pedestrian on Franklin Blvd, as viewed by passing Elk Grove thru-motorists, is lower than a snake's ballbag. You the reader aren't about to go there, so you drive everywhere, as all responsible Sacramento area citizens do. So you haven't the first fucking clue how loud a siren is to someone not encased in a motor vehicle.
Consider this...every police car with its siren on always, always! has its windows up, never down. Even policemen are smart enough to realize they'd immediately go deaf with their own damn sirens going off two feet away from their heads. This isn't intended to deride lawmen, only to point out the deafening noise we require for safety...103dB sirens, 94dB train whistles at 3AM, light rail's twelve-bells at every stop, backup beepers on forklifts...
I'm not quite the citizen that Sacramento society expects because I ride a bicycle, an almost two hundred year old invention. But I also do it with technological tethers; a cell phone for emergencies, an insulin pump to keep alive, an iPod to prevent deafness...But what if I didn't have these things? Honestly, I might be just as well off. I wouldn't have to work quite so hard to afford them. I wouldn't have to spend hours on the phone with AT&T, fuckering about with my frozen credit to get a new cell phone or with their support staff trying to figure out why I can't access my account on-line. I wouldn't have to expend life force trying to download just a few more songs onto an iPod without having to deal with settings, controls or other new horseshit features. (a complete pain in the ass, btw).
Is this what life is about? Being constant slaves to operating system failures, comm protocol incompatibilities, heart-rate monitor breakdowns, cycle computer glitches, Shania Twain ring tone losses, IRS e-filing errors, Blackberry connectivity issues, on-board navigational headaches, irig-B time sync shutdowns, cell phone/toilet encounters, ftp transfer failures, voicemail messaging breakdowns, emission control module burnouts, DVD region code restrictions, Outlook exchange server connection problems, left-channel stereo cut-outs, power window fuse blowouts, or firmware revision backward compatibility issues?
We've substituted simple living arrangements in concert with other human beings (a get-together with neighbors in a walkable community) with living in isolated, car-dependent, air-conditioned personal compounds with technologies that sap every scrap of free time trying to get them to function.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Perpetual Leisure
Thinking about my neighbor's fourteen year old still-staked Crepe Myrtle tree led me to conclude that what we've done with our living environments accelerates the myth of perpetual leisure.
Look, fifteen years ago every homeowner mowed his or her own lawn. Edged it, trimmed the bushes, and ran the mower over the grass. Today as I rode the bike up Franklin Blvd., I was passed by what must have been half a dozen pickup trucks with mowers and blowers in the back and two or three Mexican or Vietnamese workers in the cab. You will never see one Mexican and two Vietnamese, or one Vietnamese and two Mexicans in the same truck. That would be impossible, because these ethnic groups never assimilate with one another. You would think that racism exists only because of white people like me but I've seen the systemic hatreds minorities have for each other. I will never, never! be convinced that white guys are the only demons. Racism exists in every culture, white or otherwise.
No, today we farm out our lawn chores to landscape maintenance engineers, primarily people who do not look like us. Apparently we are so involved in soccer practices, NASCAR viewing, DVD pirating, ballet recitals, dining out, porn surfing, barbecuing and taking Sunday drives to Pittsburgh that we cannot devote any time to our own environments. We are a nation expecting perpetual leisure.
I thought about tree-stakes from my very first pedal this morning and before I even got to Franklin Blvd and I found eleven trees that still have their training wheels still on. Eleven! Homeowners plant a tree and expect it to grow all by itself; they don't want to fucking think about it anymore. They expect it to provide shade in a few years and when the tree fails to develop correctly because it's girdled by a wire noose, they think it's just the tree's fault.
Landscape maintenance engineers also don't know shit about trees. Most of the time they destroy the cambium layer with weed eaters, dooming the tree to a life of perpetual weakness at the trunk. And why would they give a shit? They are paid to trim weeds, collect leaves and to mow the lawn, not to care for trees...it's not part of their service contracts.
The only reason we can farm out this labor is because cheap gasoline underwrites the hundreds of thousands of trucks needed to support this enterprise. And because we've now grown accustomed to having brown people do our dirty work, we'll never return to such menial labor.
"Yard maintenance is a form of work. And I never work."
Look, fifteen years ago every homeowner mowed his or her own lawn. Edged it, trimmed the bushes, and ran the mower over the grass. Today as I rode the bike up Franklin Blvd., I was passed by what must have been half a dozen pickup trucks with mowers and blowers in the back and two or three Mexican or Vietnamese workers in the cab. You will never see one Mexican and two Vietnamese, or one Vietnamese and two Mexicans in the same truck. That would be impossible, because these ethnic groups never assimilate with one another. You would think that racism exists only because of white people like me but I've seen the systemic hatreds minorities have for each other. I will never, never! be convinced that white guys are the only demons. Racism exists in every culture, white or otherwise.
No, today we farm out our lawn chores to landscape maintenance engineers, primarily people who do not look like us. Apparently we are so involved in soccer practices, NASCAR viewing, DVD pirating, ballet recitals, dining out, porn surfing, barbecuing and taking Sunday drives to Pittsburgh that we cannot devote any time to our own environments. We are a nation expecting perpetual leisure.
I thought about tree-stakes from my very first pedal this morning and before I even got to Franklin Blvd and I found eleven trees that still have their training wheels still on. Eleven! Homeowners plant a tree and expect it to grow all by itself; they don't want to fucking think about it anymore. They expect it to provide shade in a few years and when the tree fails to develop correctly because it's girdled by a wire noose, they think it's just the tree's fault.
Landscape maintenance engineers also don't know shit about trees. Most of the time they destroy the cambium layer with weed eaters, dooming the tree to a life of perpetual weakness at the trunk. And why would they give a shit? They are paid to trim weeds, collect leaves and to mow the lawn, not to care for trees...it's not part of their service contracts.
The only reason we can farm out this labor is because cheap gasoline underwrites the hundreds of thousands of trucks needed to support this enterprise. And because we've now grown accustomed to having brown people do our dirty work, we'll never return to such menial labor.
"Yard maintenance is a form of work. And I never work."
Car Pole
I've got a first cousin, twice removed, who wrecked his car along Franklin Blvd. sometime in the 1960s. Smashed into a power pole (please don't call them telephone poles...they are almost always power poles owned by power companies who lease the underbuilds to the phone companies.) And apparently our cousin Wally Laursen caused a big enough SMUD outage to warrant a Sacramento Bee story the next day.
Your author is not immune to car-pole accidents, as we call them in our industry. On December 13th, 1986 your author smashed into a 69kV feeder on Fair Oaks Blvd. near the intersection of San Juan. The only reason I know that date is because I actually found the record in the SMUD logs! We were clearing old documents to be archived to Iron Mountain and I took a bit of time to find my accident.
Fascinating! 4:14 in the morning I hit the pole in a blue Toyota truck having fallen asleep driving home. 7,344 customers affected for 21 minutes. SMUD operates their 69kV system radially, meaning the loss of a feeder results in the wholesale loss of customer load until such time as operations either clears the fault or picks up the load on adjacent feeders. I created a B-C phase to phase fault when I smashed into the pole and the phase conductors galloped and touched.
I never knew about the outage I caused until this week. I was in the emergency room with a lacerated tongue and mom's wrath . My stepdad kept on and on about how he had just spent $300 bucks to get the truck's brakes done. I had no idea I caused a few hundred alarm clocks to reset to 00:00, how many hundreds were late for church on the 14th...what a rebel I was!
Your author is not immune to car-pole accidents, as we call them in our industry. On December 13th, 1986 your author smashed into a 69kV feeder on Fair Oaks Blvd. near the intersection of San Juan. The only reason I know that date is because I actually found the record in the SMUD logs! We were clearing old documents to be archived to Iron Mountain and I took a bit of time to find my accident.
Fascinating! 4:14 in the morning I hit the pole in a blue Toyota truck having fallen asleep driving home. 7,344 customers affected for 21 minutes. SMUD operates their 69kV system radially, meaning the loss of a feeder results in the wholesale loss of customer load until such time as operations either clears the fault or picks up the load on adjacent feeders. I created a B-C phase to phase fault when I smashed into the pole and the phase conductors galloped and touched.
I never knew about the outage I caused until this week. I was in the emergency room with a lacerated tongue and mom's wrath . My stepdad kept on and on about how he had just spent $300 bucks to get the truck's brakes done. I had no idea I caused a few hundred alarm clocks to reset to 00:00, how many hundreds were late for church on the 14th...what a rebel I was!
Fixed Income
Lately in the news we hear of elderly folks held up by rising medical and gasoline costs...because they live on a fixed income.
You know what? I ain't elderly and my check last Friday was the exact same as it was two Friday's before, and two Friday's before that. At 38 I also live on a fixed income. Ain't going up, ain't going down. No one's crying for me.
What the hell does that term mean, fixed income? When you consider that there are annual cost of living adjustments made to social security, no one falls into strict accordance with the term. It's a farce to make current wage-earners feel guilty about social inequities between members of the last generation. You know who's really on fixed incomes? Migrant farm workers.
Not only do I have to hear about this on the news, but did you ever stop to consider that in between the news we're overrun with elderly-targeted prescription commercials? I guarantee every break on the NBC evening news since 2005 had at least one drug commercial. Mostly prescription, but oftentimes OTC. Overrun. So is it really a crime that someone on a supposed fixed income can't afford skyrocketing rates for recreational drugs that cost 65% more than they need to to compensate Big Pharma for their advertising budgets? Is it?
You know what? I ain't elderly and my check last Friday was the exact same as it was two Friday's before, and two Friday's before that. At 38 I also live on a fixed income. Ain't going up, ain't going down. No one's crying for me.
What the hell does that term mean, fixed income? When you consider that there are annual cost of living adjustments made to social security, no one falls into strict accordance with the term. It's a farce to make current wage-earners feel guilty about social inequities between members of the last generation. You know who's really on fixed incomes? Migrant farm workers.
Not only do I have to hear about this on the news, but did you ever stop to consider that in between the news we're overrun with elderly-targeted prescription commercials? I guarantee every break on the NBC evening news since 2005 had at least one drug commercial. Mostly prescription, but oftentimes OTC. Overrun. So is it really a crime that someone on a supposed fixed income can't afford skyrocketing rates for recreational drugs that cost 65% more than they need to to compensate Big Pharma for their advertising budgets? Is it?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Insania for City Council
What I almost universally find is that people agree with my points of view on almost everything offered up on the Franklin Monologues. Why would that be? I am most certainly not a persuasive speaker. I don't have a consistent writing voice. But it sure seems that very few people question my viewpoints directly. Again...why would that be?
Massive discussions were underway this evening between myself, my brother in law, my nephew and my nephew's daughter. With a few beers in me my contempt for Elk Grove was displayed in spades. And I wasn't once questioned. Even without alcohol I'm rarely questioned by co-workers, friends or relatives.
I hold a minority viewpoint. I know my views are radical, mis-understood, and unpopular...but likewise I'm not preaching Engels or Marx here...I'm speaking a language I think everyone understands but fails to appreciate. It seems most people know that things are not right with the way we've laid out our environments, our financial structures, our architectures, and our social interactions, but fail to recognize them on an everyday basis.
So I will go out on a limb and assume that most people actually agree with me...but it clearly isn't as important to them. That's fine. We all find our own little things to hang our hats on. At the present, my peeves lie in my Elk Grove suburban realm. Five years ago it was the electric industry. Ten years ago it was the global environment. Fifteen years ago I really didn't care about anything in particular, I just wanted to make money and start a family and everyone and everything else could go pound sand.
With a little different nudging back in 1991, today I could be blogging about gay rights, the plight of the migrant farmworker, NASA funding, or the Republican National Convention. But the difference between these issues and what I raise in the Franklin Monologues is that everyone almost always takes one side or the other on all the other arguments but rarely takes issue with what I offer.
Is there anyone who truly thinks that 60-foot wide residential streets would be better than 40 footers? That trees really don't mean anything to a community? That our zoning laws or our setback requirements harm quality human interactions? That we in a primordial sense shouldn't look out for the welfare of others? These define my Monologues and in some deeper sense I really think most people would believe in what I write if it were broadcasted widely and intelligently.
The will of one person rarely carries any weight, but a groundswell of people with similar views can go far. At the moment, I'm content with blogging about things I don't like but perhaps over time I will parlay this into meaningful action.
Massive discussions were underway this evening between myself, my brother in law, my nephew and my nephew's daughter. With a few beers in me my contempt for Elk Grove was displayed in spades. And I wasn't once questioned. Even without alcohol I'm rarely questioned by co-workers, friends or relatives.
I hold a minority viewpoint. I know my views are radical, mis-understood, and unpopular...but likewise I'm not preaching Engels or Marx here...I'm speaking a language I think everyone understands but fails to appreciate. It seems most people know that things are not right with the way we've laid out our environments, our financial structures, our architectures, and our social interactions, but fail to recognize them on an everyday basis.
So I will go out on a limb and assume that most people actually agree with me...but it clearly isn't as important to them. That's fine. We all find our own little things to hang our hats on. At the present, my peeves lie in my Elk Grove suburban realm. Five years ago it was the electric industry. Ten years ago it was the global environment. Fifteen years ago I really didn't care about anything in particular, I just wanted to make money and start a family and everyone and everything else could go pound sand.
With a little different nudging back in 1991, today I could be blogging about gay rights, the plight of the migrant farmworker, NASA funding, or the Republican National Convention. But the difference between these issues and what I raise in the Franklin Monologues is that everyone almost always takes one side or the other on all the other arguments but rarely takes issue with what I offer.
Is there anyone who truly thinks that 60-foot wide residential streets would be better than 40 footers? That trees really don't mean anything to a community? That our zoning laws or our setback requirements harm quality human interactions? That we in a primordial sense shouldn't look out for the welfare of others? These define my Monologues and in some deeper sense I really think most people would believe in what I write if it were broadcasted widely and intelligently.
The will of one person rarely carries any weight, but a groundswell of people with similar views can go far. At the moment, I'm content with blogging about things I don't like but perhaps over time I will parlay this into meaningful action.
Patterns of Exclusivity
Early last week my co-worker and I took the light rail to midtown for Thai. He's Bangladeshi, can't handle his wife's cooking anymore and his tastes are limited. Doesn't like or doesn't partake in calamari, Mexican, Chinese, beans, pork, beer, lobster, or avocados. But Thai? Yes! And I freakin' love Chada Thai's pumpkin curry with Thai hot peppers in fish sauce. But alas, Rachel Ray doesn't author the Franklin Monologues and I need to focus. I wanted to point out my pet theory of the week: a person's social contact is inversely proportional to their social paranoia. I live in no fear of anyone on light rail.
I ride my bike daily on Franklin Blvd. alongside G Parkway, through 41st and The Grains, up Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd through Oak Park, and down Broadway past the EDD and the county morgue. These are among the worst neighborhoods in Sacramento, and I have no intention on visiting the latter destination.
The Grains, about 1,500' in diameter, recorded three homicides, twenty two aggravated assaults, one rape, twenty seven drug crimes, twenty six robberies, and five weapons arrests in 2007. This 'neighborhood' begins exactly on the other side of Franklin Blvd. where I shot that photo of neglected ash trees. Perhaps a corollary theory is that the state of a neighborhood is directly proportional to the quality of their trees.
I've got little fear of riding through these areas, even for a white boy on a bicycle. And much of it has to do with the incremental, albeit small, contact I have with the residents. I acknowledge cars who give me space. I wave hello to grandmas, Sikhs, black mothers and Hispanic children. 18-27 year old black men don't usually even acknowledge my presence but on occasion a few have nodded back. And I fully admit, I live in perpetual fear of three shirtless black guys in a Dodge Neon. But I'm not looking for trouble and I am always aware of my surroundings; I'm not about to stop riding because of paranoia.
Social paranoia is a byproduct of our living arrangements. Not only do we exclusively designate a zone by activity (single use zoning), we also segregate zones by economic class. The rich want nothing to do with the middle class who in turn want nothing to do with the lower class. These arrangements, in my humble opinion, is but a catalyst that reinforces growing chasms between people. The intentional segregation of poor people has only led to catastrophic poverty levels.
I understand that in the past and in a few extraordinary modern cases, people of mixed economic class have and can live side by side. Well-to-do people might understand that the less well-off are actually people too, and that the less well-off have access to a public realm and contacts with wealthier neighbors that might allow for them to remove the shackles of poverty. And to be sure, I see that this cannot possibly exist with our current patterns of exclusivity.
I ride my bike daily on Franklin Blvd. alongside G Parkway, through 41st and The Grains, up Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd through Oak Park, and down Broadway past the EDD and the county morgue. These are among the worst neighborhoods in Sacramento, and I have no intention on visiting the latter destination.
The Grains, about 1,500' in diameter, recorded three homicides, twenty two aggravated assaults, one rape, twenty seven drug crimes, twenty six robberies, and five weapons arrests in 2007. This 'neighborhood' begins exactly on the other side of Franklin Blvd. where I shot that photo of neglected ash trees. Perhaps a corollary theory is that the state of a neighborhood is directly proportional to the quality of their trees.
I've got little fear of riding through these areas, even for a white boy on a bicycle. And much of it has to do with the incremental, albeit small, contact I have with the residents. I acknowledge cars who give me space. I wave hello to grandmas, Sikhs, black mothers and Hispanic children. 18-27 year old black men don't usually even acknowledge my presence but on occasion a few have nodded back. And I fully admit, I live in perpetual fear of three shirtless black guys in a Dodge Neon. But I'm not looking for trouble and I am always aware of my surroundings; I'm not about to stop riding because of paranoia.
Social paranoia is a byproduct of our living arrangements. Not only do we exclusively designate a zone by activity (single use zoning), we also segregate zones by economic class. The rich want nothing to do with the middle class who in turn want nothing to do with the lower class. These arrangements, in my humble opinion, is but a catalyst that reinforces growing chasms between people. The intentional segregation of poor people has only led to catastrophic poverty levels.
I understand that in the past and in a few extraordinary modern cases, people of mixed economic class have and can live side by side. Well-to-do people might understand that the less well-off are actually people too, and that the less well-off have access to a public realm and contacts with wealthier neighbors that might allow for them to remove the shackles of poverty. And to be sure, I see that this cannot possibly exist with our current patterns of exclusivity.
One Unit Gasoline
Can you imagine a return to the use of these?
Suppose oil and gas supplies suddenly become tight...suppose there's an above-ground crisis -- a revolution in Saudi Arabia whose new gub'ment decides to keep all resources in house, as an example.
I don't foresee this; I think their own interests would be harmed in doing so, just like China won't suddenly purge all their dollar reserves. China needs us as an export sink, we need them to accessorize our suburban homes, we (globally) need Arabian oil, and Arabia needs western technologies, food, and other imports to make up for their single-resource economy.
While I don't foresee a sudden resource scarcity, we will all soon be experiencing increased bidding for accelerating declining net oil exports from oil exporting countries. Oil will continue to increase in price. Haiti, Benin, Bangladesh, Namibia; these countries will be simply unable to afford the increased costs. Demand destruction will occur here first, and while we grumble about how expensive vacationing to Columbus, Ohio is going to be this winter, Haitians, slowly but surely, will begin to starve, when food staples are either shunted to bio-fuels or they become simply too expensive to ship.
I can't envision how rationing energy could possibly work here in the U.S., in a nation completely oblivious to its own energy squandering, with its consumption per capita far greater than any other nation. If we are completely unwilling to discourage the use of non-renewable resources, and we show a complete willingness to price out every other oil consuming country (i.e, the rest of the entire world)...would we ever again consider that oil use is a common good and therefore ought to be rationed to every citizen? Not just to those who can price everyone else out?
There's enough concentrated power in this nation that if we ever had an energy deficiency, those in control would never allow for the redistribution of what was available. Rationing will never work.
Suppose oil and gas supplies suddenly become tight...suppose there's an above-ground crisis -- a revolution in Saudi Arabia whose new gub'ment decides to keep all resources in house, as an example.I don't foresee this; I think their own interests would be harmed in doing so, just like China won't suddenly purge all their dollar reserves. China needs us as an export sink, we need them to accessorize our suburban homes, we (globally) need Arabian oil, and Arabia needs western technologies, food, and other imports to make up for their single-resource economy.
While I don't foresee a sudden resource scarcity, we will all soon be experiencing increased bidding for accelerating declining net oil exports from oil exporting countries. Oil will continue to increase in price. Haiti, Benin, Bangladesh, Namibia; these countries will be simply unable to afford the increased costs. Demand destruction will occur here first, and while we grumble about how expensive vacationing to Columbus, Ohio is going to be this winter, Haitians, slowly but surely, will begin to starve, when food staples are either shunted to bio-fuels or they become simply too expensive to ship.
I can't envision how rationing energy could possibly work here in the U.S., in a nation completely oblivious to its own energy squandering, with its consumption per capita far greater than any other nation. If we are completely unwilling to discourage the use of non-renewable resources, and we show a complete willingness to price out every other oil consuming country (i.e, the rest of the entire world)...would we ever again consider that oil use is a common good and therefore ought to be rationed to every citizen? Not just to those who can price everyone else out?
There's enough concentrated power in this nation that if we ever had an energy deficiency, those in control would never allow for the redistribution of what was available. Rationing will never work.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Assessment
I want to acknowledge that there are others in Elk Grove who are doing their part to try to make this a better place. I'm certainly not one of them; I bitterly complain on a lone blog and in the end this doesn't go very far.
Having recently posted about Elk Grovian trees, I found a tree assessment the city did a few years ago, found here. What I take away from this assessment is 1) there are others who realize the benefits of trees, 2) I was pretty close to their assessment with my own Franklin Blvd. 'assessment' and 3) how galactically stupid we are for thinking we can obfuscate shitty urban design with trees.
I'm not entirely facetious here. If I may quote the first section in their recommendations:
Implement best practices in tree planning, planting and maintenance:
Urban planning is a joke. A joke, because since 1940 we've thrown out three thousand years of human scaled living histories for sets of motor vehicle and building codes that dictate only setbacks, street widths, parking requirements per 100sf, and other shit you can't do. They tell us nothing about how things ought to be laid out. There's no god-damn planning; it's only rule-following.
How much more obvious can it be to build narrow streets with big trees? To allow canopies to arch together? To define a sense of place? To soften hardscapes? To allow for safe pedestrian passage along with motor vehicles? This is a crucial component in what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood and we completely ignore it! A narrow street is illegal, illegal! because the codes say so! Elk Grove streets are designed to allow tractor-trailers (or...firetrucks) to pull a u-turn at any location, so fuck all you pedestrians! If you can't afford a private vehicle you're unimportant in our community. We're going to make streets wide enough so you stand a much better chance at getting killed by a speeding minivan. We're going to make it so that any chronically late suburban househusband will run you over as he can easily negotiate any street at 57mph. We're going to allow for 30 foot radius street corners so that you spend twice as much time crossing the street walking twice as far to get hit by cars moving twice as fast.
Enough!
Having recently posted about Elk Grovian trees, I found a tree assessment the city did a few years ago, found here. What I take away from this assessment is 1) there are others who realize the benefits of trees, 2) I was pretty close to their assessment with my own Franklin Blvd. 'assessment' and 3) how galactically stupid we are for thinking we can obfuscate shitty urban design with trees.
I'm not entirely facetious here. If I may quote the first section in their recommendations:
Implement best practices in tree planning, planting and maintenance:
- Design more separated sidewalks with landscape strips to replace, or add to, front yard street trees on private property;
- When front yard trees are used, design for narrower streets to optimize the street canopy...
Urban planning is a joke. A joke, because since 1940 we've thrown out three thousand years of human scaled living histories for sets of motor vehicle and building codes that dictate only setbacks, street widths, parking requirements per 100sf, and other shit you can't do. They tell us nothing about how things ought to be laid out. There's no god-damn planning; it's only rule-following.
How much more obvious can it be to build narrow streets with big trees? To allow canopies to arch together? To define a sense of place? To soften hardscapes? To allow for safe pedestrian passage along with motor vehicles? This is a crucial component in what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood and we completely ignore it! A narrow street is illegal, illegal! because the codes say so! Elk Grove streets are designed to allow tractor-trailers (or...firetrucks) to pull a u-turn at any location, so fuck all you pedestrians! If you can't afford a private vehicle you're unimportant in our community. We're going to make streets wide enough so you stand a much better chance at getting killed by a speeding minivan. We're going to make it so that any chronically late suburban househusband will run you over as he can easily negotiate any street at 57mph. We're going to allow for 30 foot radius street corners so that you spend twice as much time crossing the street walking twice as far to get hit by cars moving twice as fast.
Enough!
The Grid
It dawned on me yesterday that Frye Creek, the corner of which I live along with Moonlight Way in Elk Grove, has no houses on it over its entire length. Not one Elk Grovian house sports a Frye Creek address...a street that's almost a full mile long.
Frye Creek is nothing but a minor suburban collector road with no saleable property. Its sole function is not to house houses, but to house moving vehicles. This kind of shit would not exist if my neighborhood was laid out in a traditional grid.
This could be my neighborhood...but it ain't:
Nope. From above you couldn't tell if this is Elk Grove, CA or Greenville, SC. Sprawl is conspicuously the same everywhere.
Note the curvilinear street (bottom left to the top right). This is similar to Frye Creek in shape except that this street actually has building frontage...but only on one side of the street at a time. The other collector road (top right to bottom right) has exactly zero...no building frontage at all.
The ability to move people and things in and out of a development is a requirement no matter how you lay out. But note, in just this snapshot you can see that about a full quarter of this plot of former farmland is the exclusive domain of motorized vehicles. In other words, a full quarter of this land and pavement is redundant. 25% more dirt, asphalt and concrete than would be required of a traditional grid. And and! the streets are ~25% wider than those in traditional development. No stretch of the imagination is necessary to see how a teenager might easily do 57mph on either of these collectors.
I'm at odds with the notion that, in this era of mega-efficiencies, just-in-time inventories and hypertrophic GDP, we continue to underwrite a universal mechanism to waste 25% of our farmlands, hillsides and praries and 25% of our non-renewables to build it.
Frye Creek is nothing but a minor suburban collector road with no saleable property. Its sole function is not to house houses, but to house moving vehicles. This kind of shit would not exist if my neighborhood was laid out in a traditional grid.
This could be my neighborhood...but it ain't:
Nope. From above you couldn't tell if this is Elk Grove, CA or Greenville, SC. Sprawl is conspicuously the same everywhere.
Note the curvilinear street (bottom left to the top right). This is similar to Frye Creek in shape except that this street actually has building frontage...but only on one side of the street at a time. The other collector road (top right to bottom right) has exactly zero...no building frontage at all.
The ability to move people and things in and out of a development is a requirement no matter how you lay out. But note, in just this snapshot you can see that about a full quarter of this plot of former farmland is the exclusive domain of motorized vehicles. In other words, a full quarter of this land and pavement is redundant. 25% more dirt, asphalt and concrete than would be required of a traditional grid. And and! the streets are ~25% wider than those in traditional development. No stretch of the imagination is necessary to see how a teenager might easily do 57mph on either of these collectors.
I'm at odds with the notion that, in this era of mega-efficiencies, just-in-time inventories and hypertrophic GDP, we continue to underwrite a universal mechanism to waste 25% of our farmlands, hillsides and praries and 25% of our non-renewables to build it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Housing Dones
I was reading today about diesel construction equipment and how this state is requiring the toughest emission standards in the nation to begin to take effect by 2010. As I anticipated earlier this year, there's now a mounting movement to delay implementation...but the rub is that the industry is citing the economic downturn as reason to delay.
Here's a wonderful argument -- the downturn of housing 'starts' is at a 17-year low, and because equipment is being idled and demand for diesel is reduced, the state's emissions will be below their targets for 2010 anyway...so why should we unnecessarily burden the industry with this now? Can't it please wait? Pretty please?
My counter argument: we haven't completed all our housing 'dones.' Won't said equipment be used until all the housing dones are started? Or until all the housing starts are done? Or until all the housing dones are done?
And answer me this: when exactly is a house started? As asked by minister Rick Warren, the Obama answer would be "That's above my paygrade." McCain: "At the moment the wheel loader is turned over."
So the Evangelical Republican answer is that once you turn over a spade of dirt the house is started. Based on dug up dirt, I can run up and down Franklin Blvd. here in Elk Grove and find hundreds of housing starts -- actually, more like housing abortions. They didn't see that coming now did they.
Also, my neighbor's house burnt down two years ago and he 'started' his new house earlier this year. Is that also a 'start?' If so, a first 'start' or a second 'start?' When it burned down would it count as a second 'done'? And who reports this start shit? How could we possibly know exactly how many there were? Does the gov'ment have some set of publicly funded start accountants?
All too confusing if you ask me. We've gone down the backroad of quantifying instead of qualifying our living environments as dones and starts and quantifying instead of qualifying their occupants as consumptive units. I find this all too disturbing.
Here's a wonderful argument -- the downturn of housing 'starts' is at a 17-year low, and because equipment is being idled and demand for diesel is reduced, the state's emissions will be below their targets for 2010 anyway...so why should we unnecessarily burden the industry with this now? Can't it please wait? Pretty please?
My counter argument: we haven't completed all our housing 'dones.' Won't said equipment be used until all the housing dones are started? Or until all the housing starts are done? Or until all the housing dones are done?
And answer me this: when exactly is a house started? As asked by minister Rick Warren, the Obama answer would be "That's above my paygrade." McCain: "At the moment the wheel loader is turned over."
So the Evangelical Republican answer is that once you turn over a spade of dirt the house is started. Based on dug up dirt, I can run up and down Franklin Blvd. here in Elk Grove and find hundreds of housing starts -- actually, more like housing abortions. They didn't see that coming now did they.
Also, my neighbor's house burnt down two years ago and he 'started' his new house earlier this year. Is that also a 'start?' If so, a first 'start' or a second 'start?' When it burned down would it count as a second 'done'? And who reports this start shit? How could we possibly know exactly how many there were? Does the gov'ment have some set of publicly funded start accountants?
All too confusing if you ask me. We've gone down the backroad of quantifying instead of qualifying our living environments as dones and starts and quantifying instead of qualifying their occupants as consumptive units. I find this all too disturbing.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Johnny Rotten
We all walk by trees and shrubs and few of us know what they are, or even know they're there. Do you know a Hackberry from an Elm? A Poplar from a Beechnut? I'm no expert. I'm hardly qualified even as a rogue amateur...but I know just enough to blog about what you don't know about trees! Ha!
I cannot overstate how important trees are to the urban landscape. As they are neglected, so is the rest of the civic realm. The absolutely most desirable and most expensive areas to live in Sacramento have the architecture, the civic layout, and the trees than make them that way. This is something that CAN NEVER and WILL NEVER be said about any Elk Grove community. That we actually had visionaries a century ago to build and correctly tree the Elk Grove Park is in stark contrast to the people who've built the suburban shit donut around it.
Lemme show you tree neglect...and it's about fourteen feet from where I blog:
These are two Crepe Myrtles -- the one on my neighbors side was planted sometime before I moved in in 1995. I assume it's roughly 14 years old. My Crepe Myrtle is just under 4 years old, but three times as big, and it stands a good chance at doubling its size by age 14.
See, there's a world of difference between two hours of maintenance a year and zero hours a year. Their tree is still staked after fourteen years! This tells me it hasn't once, not once, been tended to in that time. Set it, and forget it. I bought a simple book on pruning and it tells me to prune after bloom, 14-16" off the top of each branch, each year...probably 25 minutes total. This is the difference between a Johnny Appleseed planting and a Johnny Rotten planting.
You may note that I once wrote about destroying a nice, well tended Pin Oak tree to remove shading from the PV panels. It was a terrible decision to make, but in the end, I planted a red oak on the back side of our plot to make up for it:
With my luck, blogging about how superior I am for having planted this tree, it will surely die. But...if it doesn't, and I correctly prune it, it will be the best tree on Frye Creek by 2048. I oriented the top branches away from buildings, I intend on pruning the lower branches in no more than two years (I want maximum green on the tree for its first few years) and I will shape the canopy correctly over its juvenile life. And...it'll take 25 minutes a year to do. I staked it, the stakes can be adjusted without girdling the tree, I mulched correctly to prevent grass (a growth inhibitor) near the base, and I deep water once every two weeks.
This should be a 40' tree by the end of my life. It will be a 45' tree for whomsoever lives in this house beyond me.
I cannot overstate how important trees are to the urban landscape. As they are neglected, so is the rest of the civic realm. The absolutely most desirable and most expensive areas to live in Sacramento have the architecture, the civic layout, and the trees than make them that way. This is something that CAN NEVER and WILL NEVER be said about any Elk Grove community. That we actually had visionaries a century ago to build and correctly tree the Elk Grove Park is in stark contrast to the people who've built the suburban shit donut around it.
Lemme show you tree neglect...and it's about fourteen feet from where I blog:
These are two Crepe Myrtles -- the one on my neighbors side was planted sometime before I moved in in 1995. I assume it's roughly 14 years old. My Crepe Myrtle is just under 4 years old, but three times as big, and it stands a good chance at doubling its size by age 14.
See, there's a world of difference between two hours of maintenance a year and zero hours a year. Their tree is still staked after fourteen years! This tells me it hasn't once, not once, been tended to in that time. Set it, and forget it. I bought a simple book on pruning and it tells me to prune after bloom, 14-16" off the top of each branch, each year...probably 25 minutes total. This is the difference between a Johnny Appleseed planting and a Johnny Rotten planting.
You may note that I once wrote about destroying a nice, well tended Pin Oak tree to remove shading from the PV panels. It was a terrible decision to make, but in the end, I planted a red oak on the back side of our plot to make up for it:
With my luck, blogging about how superior I am for having planted this tree, it will surely die. But...if it doesn't, and I correctly prune it, it will be the best tree on Frye Creek by 2048. I oriented the top branches away from buildings, I intend on pruning the lower branches in no more than two years (I want maximum green on the tree for its first few years) and I will shape the canopy correctly over its juvenile life. And...it'll take 25 minutes a year to do. I staked it, the stakes can be adjusted without girdling the tree, I mulched correctly to prevent grass (a growth inhibitor) near the base, and I deep water once every two weeks.
This should be a 40' tree by the end of my life. It will be a 45' tree for whomsoever lives in this house beyond me.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Wrong Way Feldman
I think I broke the law this morning. My son's first day of sixth grade and we rode bicycles to school; I rode with him halfway then it was off to work for me, adding another mile and a half to my regular ride. I broke the law by not motoring him to school. Elk Grove children by law are forbidden to walk, bicycle, scoot, or skateboard to or from school.
Skateboards and scooters aren't allowed in the classroom, the principal's office forbids their storage, and lockers are a relic of the '80s...so they're illegal. Walking is unsafe, what with every third home housing a convicted sex offender, and besides, for ten years there weren't any sidewalks to Sheldon High School from Bradshaw Rd. Ten years. For ten years I biked on a 3-inch shoulder while dodging kids walking the other way. As for bicycling...well, that's not to be done for utilitarian purposes. It should be for recreation, not commuting. Competing with all the other vehicles driven by chronically late parents shuttling their own kids off to school, well, that's unsafe. Besides, the city just recently demolished the bike lanes on Bruceville Rd. to make more room for vehicles. Children in Elk Grove are expected to be motored.
The thing is, as gas rises to a sustained four dollars, then five, then six, we're going to see incrementally more kids breaking the law...because no one ever teaches them how to ride a bike.In many parts of Europe bicycle training is mandatory education. They teach children the rules of the road, how to signal, how to avoid accidents. Here, all we tell them is "you gotta wear a helmet! WEAR YOUR HELMET!" American children don't know the first damn thing about riding a bike. They grow up and they don't know the first damn thing about how to drive or how to ride a bike.
I gotta tell you, folks, all these new bicyclists are creating a danger for themselves and for others. On one hand you'd think I'd approve of all these new bike commuters; they displace one more motor vehicle each, our increased numbers mean increased awareness to drivers...but on the other hand, I don't approve; they are blowing through stop signs, riding on the wrong side of the road, not signaling passes or turns, riding on sidewalks, talking on cell phones, and blowing through stop lights.
One of the very first things a new bicyclist will do, almost universally, is ride into traffic. It feels safer. In reality, it's the most dangerous error to make:
Skateboards and scooters aren't allowed in the classroom, the principal's office forbids their storage, and lockers are a relic of the '80s...so they're illegal. Walking is unsafe, what with every third home housing a convicted sex offender, and besides, for ten years there weren't any sidewalks to Sheldon High School from Bradshaw Rd. Ten years. For ten years I biked on a 3-inch shoulder while dodging kids walking the other way. As for bicycling...well, that's not to be done for utilitarian purposes. It should be for recreation, not commuting. Competing with all the other vehicles driven by chronically late parents shuttling their own kids off to school, well, that's unsafe. Besides, the city just recently demolished the bike lanes on Bruceville Rd. to make more room for vehicles. Children in Elk Grove are expected to be motored.
The thing is, as gas rises to a sustained four dollars, then five, then six, we're going to see incrementally more kids breaking the law...because no one ever teaches them how to ride a bike.In many parts of Europe bicycle training is mandatory education. They teach children the rules of the road, how to signal, how to avoid accidents. Here, all we tell them is "you gotta wear a helmet! WEAR YOUR HELMET!" American children don't know the first damn thing about riding a bike. They grow up and they don't know the first damn thing about how to drive or how to ride a bike.
I gotta tell you, folks, all these new bicyclists are creating a danger for themselves and for others. On one hand you'd think I'd approve of all these new bike commuters; they displace one more motor vehicle each, our increased numbers mean increased awareness to drivers...but on the other hand, I don't approve; they are blowing through stop signs, riding on the wrong side of the road, not signaling passes or turns, riding on sidewalks, talking on cell phones, and blowing through stop lights.
One of the very first things a new bicyclist will do, almost universally, is ride into traffic. It feels safer. In reality, it's the most dangerous error to make:
- You increase the number of vehicles that pass by up to three times (150%).
- Increase in turning danger due to cars entering the roadway that don't look for wrong way bicyclists.
- Danger to other cyclists (ME!).
- Increase in closing speed.
- Limited time and space to react for drivers.
- Greater impact force and breaking distances.
- It's against the law (OK, this isn't dangerous).
The good news is that my son already knows about every one of these. At twelve he can ride better than most adults.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Phoenix International
What do you suppose is the purpose of this tower overlooking the newer Phoenix Park development on Franklin Blvd.?
What does it do? Will snipers post here? I fully admit I have not once stepped foot into this Phoenix Park Activity Center. For all I know, this tower might house fifty people. But come on; you and I both know there isn't one damn thing this tower does. Not one damn thing it provides for its residents or its community.
Look at this thing; there was a lot of effort put into the architectural design, the construction, the 'detailing.' It's nearly as tall as the flagpole on the right. Is this what we pay architectural firms to design? Apparently the flat single story center wasn't sufficient; no, the firm had to shoehorn in a 13' by 13' conning tower...SSN-664, the Sea Phoenix. Or maybe it's the control tower for Phoenix International.
In any event, the bottom cornice above the lower window serves no purpose whatsoever; it certainly doesn't throw rainwater free of the window below it, and neither does either cornice above it. The tower's frieze is blank yellow stucco with faux shutters and windows above it.
I see myself as a young architect, waiting for my opportunity to really outdo myself. I propose the Phoenix International Tower, presenting a scaled down popsicle stick model to my superiors. That it does nothing, provides for no one, and affords the community with precisely dick is irrelevant. It looks cool. The fight to get this thing past the city's zoning codes was admittedly bloody, but worth it. I was granted an exemption to the law-against-more-than-one-story. The firm prospers, and I become partner.
What does it do? Will snipers post here? I fully admit I have not once stepped foot into this Phoenix Park Activity Center. For all I know, this tower might house fifty people. But come on; you and I both know there isn't one damn thing this tower does. Not one damn thing it provides for its residents or its community.
Look at this thing; there was a lot of effort put into the architectural design, the construction, the 'detailing.' It's nearly as tall as the flagpole on the right. Is this what we pay architectural firms to design? Apparently the flat single story center wasn't sufficient; no, the firm had to shoehorn in a 13' by 13' conning tower...SSN-664, the Sea Phoenix. Or maybe it's the control tower for Phoenix International.
In any event, the bottom cornice above the lower window serves no purpose whatsoever; it certainly doesn't throw rainwater free of the window below it, and neither does either cornice above it. The tower's frieze is blank yellow stucco with faux shutters and windows above it.
I see myself as a young architect, waiting for my opportunity to really outdo myself. I propose the Phoenix International Tower, presenting a scaled down popsicle stick model to my superiors. That it does nothing, provides for no one, and affords the community with precisely dick is irrelevant. It looks cool. The fight to get this thing past the city's zoning codes was admittedly bloody, but worth it. I was granted an exemption to the law-against-more-than-one-story. The firm prospers, and I become partner.
The Active Home Eugenics Program
What invariably happens to every Elk Grove subdivision, and it happens everywhere else too, is that they get vegetated.
The attractiveness of new tract housing isn't necessarily the homes themselves, it's the cleanliness and homogeneity of the landscape. It's the ultimate in sterility, isn't it? Every new unit prominently displays their blank two or three car garage door to the street, with no loathsome minivans or Pacers in any driveway to clutter the view. There are no more that four different models but all are offered in both chiral forms to give the illusion of eight unique offerings.
Along with the sterile houses are the equally sterile front landscapes. The same species of grass (to take advantage of mass purchasing), the same two or three trees (to take advantage of mass purchasing) and the same two or three shrubs (to take advantage of mass purchasing). This is the end product of our ongoing Elk Grove Active Home Eugenics Program (AHEP).
Here in Elk Grove, the current favorite trees are American Sycamore, Lagerstroemia, and flowering plums. The shrubbery is almost always comprised of India Hawthorne or Agapanthus. Granted, we freeze every third winter and summers are 50C so there isn't a wide variety of choices in vegetation...but more than 5 different plants are actually known to grow here.
There's one massive problem with this whole setup. Nature on her own cannot replicate the same symmetries and sterile environments that tract homebuilders can. Trees get overgrown. Some die. Others get mistletoe. And...they drop leaves. When the newest Elk Grove subdivision is up for grabs by throngs of Bay Area cretins out-bidding each other, they visit the model homes with not a leaf in any gutter, not a clump of Dallisgrass in any lawn, not one out-of-place branch, and not a single root overtaking any stamped concrete walkway. This changes over time. The sterility and cleanliness slowly dies, and so does a part of them. The neighborhood becomes...vegetated.
In my opinion, a large piece of this transformation is directly due to owner/occupant laziness and ignorance. Take a look at a classic example on Franklin Blvd:
Four Modesto Ash trees in front of the Campbell Soup factory.
Franklin Blvd. just underwent a massive tree planting 'beautification' effort about a half mile south of this photo while these trees stand neglected. They were doomed from the beginning. Thoughtlessly planted. Four trees in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a late model sidewalk. Then they stood there for probably a decade and a half without any pruning. The only reason they were likely ever pruned at all was because the county threatened fines for growing into the street. But instead of being pruned they were pollarded. They pollarded these trees one winter when they were ~16 years old, leaving the trunk and 4 or 5 6-foot mains because of complete neglect. Now, after another 9 years, they've become standing bushes...no envelope, no height, with secondary branches growing along the trunk line. A few years from now they'll be pollarded again, to compensate for continuing neglect.
These could have been magnificent trees with proper attention! And this is exactly what's happening in Elk Grove today; no one gives a shit about their trees. They don't give a shit. Many were simply terminated; most are neglected. Along Frye Creek I count eight trees with their stakes and rubber ties still attached...after 18 years! Many trees lean to leeward, their owners having never re-staked when the winds came. Surface root systems abound because they never took the time to deep water and only watered them with their lawn sprinklers.
Let me tell you, this is a classic symptom of what happens when people view their own neighborhoods as areas not worth caring for...when they view them as areas not worth maintaining after the sanitized, sterilized, and homogenized illusion evaporates. If occupants aren't willing to care for their own properties, their own trees, why would they care about anything else in the community?
The attractiveness of new tract housing isn't necessarily the homes themselves, it's the cleanliness and homogeneity of the landscape. It's the ultimate in sterility, isn't it? Every new unit prominently displays their blank two or three car garage door to the street, with no loathsome minivans or Pacers in any driveway to clutter the view. There are no more that four different models but all are offered in both chiral forms to give the illusion of eight unique offerings.
Along with the sterile houses are the equally sterile front landscapes. The same species of grass (to take advantage of mass purchasing), the same two or three trees (to take advantage of mass purchasing) and the same two or three shrubs (to take advantage of mass purchasing). This is the end product of our ongoing Elk Grove Active Home Eugenics Program (AHEP).
Here in Elk Grove, the current favorite trees are American Sycamore, Lagerstroemia, and flowering plums. The shrubbery is almost always comprised of India Hawthorne or Agapanthus. Granted, we freeze every third winter and summers are 50C so there isn't a wide variety of choices in vegetation...but more than 5 different plants are actually known to grow here.
There's one massive problem with this whole setup. Nature on her own cannot replicate the same symmetries and sterile environments that tract homebuilders can. Trees get overgrown. Some die. Others get mistletoe. And...they drop leaves. When the newest Elk Grove subdivision is up for grabs by throngs of Bay Area cretins out-bidding each other, they visit the model homes with not a leaf in any gutter, not a clump of Dallisgrass in any lawn, not one out-of-place branch, and not a single root overtaking any stamped concrete walkway. This changes over time. The sterility and cleanliness slowly dies, and so does a part of them. The neighborhood becomes...vegetated.
In my opinion, a large piece of this transformation is directly due to owner/occupant laziness and ignorance. Take a look at a classic example on Franklin Blvd:
Four Modesto Ash trees in front of the Campbell Soup factory.
Franklin Blvd. just underwent a massive tree planting 'beautification' effort about a half mile south of this photo while these trees stand neglected. They were doomed from the beginning. Thoughtlessly planted. Four trees in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a late model sidewalk. Then they stood there for probably a decade and a half without any pruning. The only reason they were likely ever pruned at all was because the county threatened fines for growing into the street. But instead of being pruned they were pollarded. They pollarded these trees one winter when they were ~16 years old, leaving the trunk and 4 or 5 6-foot mains because of complete neglect. Now, after another 9 years, they've become standing bushes...no envelope, no height, with secondary branches growing along the trunk line. A few years from now they'll be pollarded again, to compensate for continuing neglect.
These could have been magnificent trees with proper attention! And this is exactly what's happening in Elk Grove today; no one gives a shit about their trees. They don't give a shit. Many were simply terminated; most are neglected. Along Frye Creek I count eight trees with their stakes and rubber ties still attached...after 18 years! Many trees lean to leeward, their owners having never re-staked when the winds came. Surface root systems abound because they never took the time to deep water and only watered them with their lawn sprinklers.
Let me tell you, this is a classic symptom of what happens when people view their own neighborhoods as areas not worth caring for...when they view them as areas not worth maintaining after the sanitized, sterilized, and homogenized illusion evaporates. If occupants aren't willing to care for their own properties, their own trees, why would they care about anything else in the community?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
More Modern than Modern
If you've never seen where I work, here's a cropped photo of the southeast section of my building:
It's described as modernist. And there isn't any other architectural form more destructive than this.
Admittedly, I'm a huge fan of simplified forms and lack of ornamentation. I build furniture in the 1900-1915 Craftsman style that at that time was a statement against the Victorian style that dominated the earlier periods, and also against the degradation of the industrialized worker. Craftsman styles promoted individual hand craftsmanship...something not found in 1908 factory production and, wouldn't you know it, also not found in 2008 factory production.
What I see are tapestries of Stalin, Lenin, Engles, Augusto Pinochet, and Chairman Mao draped across the one hundred and twelve feet of blank brick wall. That's what this building tells the world -- "I'm solitary, I will not integrate with the community. I'm designed to stand alone." It's entire exterior conveys to a pedestrian "keep away." I believe it was built in 1967, and I gotta think that a newly minted engineer, graduating from Mira Loma High School in 1963 who shuttled himself off to a four year degree would have found working in this building quite welcoming.
I can think of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of other buildings that convey the same message. This is the message every walled suburban 'community' says to the world --"I'm an oasis in our collective shitstorm." Come on, the dream of virtually every modern architect is to design their own, stand alone statement. Look at the national library of Prague:
This is the architectural representation of a nocturnal emission by its architect -- a dollop of dream cream. Could it possibly integrate with any other building? No. It's not supposed to.
It's described as modernist. And there isn't any other architectural form more destructive than this.
Admittedly, I'm a huge fan of simplified forms and lack of ornamentation. I build furniture in the 1900-1915 Craftsman style that at that time was a statement against the Victorian style that dominated the earlier periods, and also against the degradation of the industrialized worker. Craftsman styles promoted individual hand craftsmanship...something not found in 1908 factory production and, wouldn't you know it, also not found in 2008 factory production.
What I see are tapestries of Stalin, Lenin, Engles, Augusto Pinochet, and Chairman Mao draped across the one hundred and twelve feet of blank brick wall. That's what this building tells the world -- "I'm solitary, I will not integrate with the community. I'm designed to stand alone." It's entire exterior conveys to a pedestrian "keep away." I believe it was built in 1967, and I gotta think that a newly minted engineer, graduating from Mira Loma High School in 1963 who shuttled himself off to a four year degree would have found working in this building quite welcoming.
I can think of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of other buildings that convey the same message. This is the message every walled suburban 'community' says to the world --"I'm an oasis in our collective shitstorm." Come on, the dream of virtually every modern architect is to design their own, stand alone statement. Look at the national library of Prague:
This is the architectural representation of a nocturnal emission by its architect -- a dollop of dream cream. Could it possibly integrate with any other building? No. It's not supposed to.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Ruin Value
I try to imagine my fair hamlet of Elk Grove, forty years into the future. Kidney failure will have done me in by then but hopefully my son will be around, although likely he'll be completely grey. The year is 2048. Elk Grove has long since passed the seven hundred thousand population mark (at an anemic 4% growth rate), and with growth plans approved by the city council back in 2010 and 2027, its "sphere of influence" extends all the way to the Consumes river and south to the Galt border. The city presently encompasses 320 square miles.
Tremendous effort went into berming the Consumes to allow for construction of the 26,000 home Quail Run development, presumably named after the wildlife that was destroyed to build it. This development began in 2019, with its ceremonious first spade of dirt on display in the fourth model home's lawyer foyer. The rest of the dirt was used to hold back the raging Consumnes river to allow for building on the floodplain. Well, to be honest, the river hasn't added a drop to the Mokelumne in some time, what with the annual Sierra rainfall down 24% since 1900 and what does fall is immediately consumed by the newly minted East Side Water Authority.
This time, however, the new Quail Run will endure. The mistakes of the past have been overwritten. Quail Run will not be destined to become the toxic suburban shitholes that Laguna Ridge and Laugna Vista have become. So the city hired the modernist architectural firm Lanson & Lanson LLC from Boston to build ruin value into the Quail Run's consumption centers (euphemism for future strip malls).
"Our buildings must also speak to the conscience of future generations of Elk Grovians," remarked Clay Lanson, senior partner at the Firm. "We noticed that everything Elk Grove did in the past wouldn't endure the ages, to speak of who we were, what we've done...well, we're changing the old calculus. We'll construct using local, natural materials that can stand the ravages of time. Would a tilt-up, ferrocemented, stucco-cladded large format retail building provide for an aesthetically pleasing ruin nine hundred years from now? Of course it wouldn't. The first ones built back in the heady days of the twenty hundreds are already crumbling.
"When our buildings crumble, they'll have value. Our buildings, our future ruins, will stand as powerful architectural proofs of the great civilization Elk Grove had once been."
Tremendous effort went into berming the Consumes to allow for construction of the 26,000 home Quail Run development, presumably named after the wildlife that was destroyed to build it. This development began in 2019, with its ceremonious first spade of dirt on display in the fourth model home's lawyer foyer. The rest of the dirt was used to hold back the raging Consumnes river to allow for building on the floodplain. Well, to be honest, the river hasn't added a drop to the Mokelumne in some time, what with the annual Sierra rainfall down 24% since 1900 and what does fall is immediately consumed by the newly minted East Side Water Authority.
This time, however, the new Quail Run will endure. The mistakes of the past have been overwritten. Quail Run will not be destined to become the toxic suburban shitholes that Laguna Ridge and Laugna Vista have become. So the city hired the modernist architectural firm Lanson & Lanson LLC from Boston to build ruin value into the Quail Run's consumption centers (euphemism for future strip malls).
"Our buildings must also speak to the conscience of future generations of Elk Grovians," remarked Clay Lanson, senior partner at the Firm. "We noticed that everything Elk Grove did in the past wouldn't endure the ages, to speak of who we were, what we've done...well, we're changing the old calculus. We'll construct using local, natural materials that can stand the ravages of time. Would a tilt-up, ferrocemented, stucco-cladded large format retail building provide for an aesthetically pleasing ruin nine hundred years from now? Of course it wouldn't. The first ones built back in the heady days of the twenty hundreds are already crumbling.
"When our buildings crumble, they'll have value. Our buildings, our future ruins, will stand as powerful architectural proofs of the great civilization Elk Grove had once been."
Innocent Byproduct
I understand the air in Beijing isn't as bad as it looks, what with the humidity and all. It will be interesting to monitor the post-Olympic reports of air pollution once all the toy factories go back to work, all the cars are liberated, and construction on the outlying coal fired power plants resumes.
It is hard to imagine the need for a new coal plant each week for 5 years. Coal units are fairly high output; as I understand it, 300MW+ each, and in general a given site will employ 4 to 6 of these. That is, a 2,100MW plant is described as 6X350...so I don't know if this 'one plant per week' means one 350MW unit or a 2,100MW plant.
It really matters not; it's a staggering statistic either way. Chinese coal underwrites your Malibu Stacy doll collection, your 2008 Detroit Redwing bobbleheads, and your cat's fish and melamine-laced pull-toys. But more importantly, it underwrites Zaozhuang's first transmission line. Your need to collect trinkets and their need for refrigeration are, clearly, both worthy end products. And by gifting that new doll to your 8 year old niece for her birthday, the 'innocent bystander' in all this, you've also given her and everyone else in this biosphere a healthy dose of mercury, carbon dioxide, arsenic, lead, and sulfur dioxide.
Am I attacking innocent little American girls? Yes! Because they grow up to be consumers; not women, not sentient beings, but consumptive units, numbers marked down by grease pencils on Chinese ledgers or bytes in spreadsheets on Nassau Street. She becomes an innocent byproduct of the system. A consumer. Not a citizen.
It is hard to imagine the need for a new coal plant each week for 5 years. Coal units are fairly high output; as I understand it, 300MW+ each, and in general a given site will employ 4 to 6 of these. That is, a 2,100MW plant is described as 6X350...so I don't know if this 'one plant per week' means one 350MW unit or a 2,100MW plant.
It really matters not; it's a staggering statistic either way. Chinese coal underwrites your Malibu Stacy doll collection, your 2008 Detroit Redwing bobbleheads, and your cat's fish and melamine-laced pull-toys. But more importantly, it underwrites Zaozhuang's first transmission line. Your need to collect trinkets and their need for refrigeration are, clearly, both worthy end products. And by gifting that new doll to your 8 year old niece for her birthday, the 'innocent bystander' in all this, you've also given her and everyone else in this biosphere a healthy dose of mercury, carbon dioxide, arsenic, lead, and sulfur dioxide.
Am I attacking innocent little American girls? Yes! Because they grow up to be consumers; not women, not sentient beings, but consumptive units, numbers marked down by grease pencils on Chinese ledgers or bytes in spreadsheets on Nassau Street. She becomes an innocent byproduct of the system. A consumer. Not a citizen.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Sixty Five
Wondering why you're stuck in traffic? Why we haven't done enough to get some of those other cars off the roadways? Wondering how to get others to use public transit? Look no farther than the #65 bus stop on Franklin Blvd.:
The Siggy Five runs on the hour. If you just missed it, you could stand here under the shade of the 4x4 signpost for 60 minutes. But you've got your three cold babies, and their mouths and your patience can't take an hour waiting for the next bus. So you think "maybe I'll start humping it." You could cover a good range with your 2.4 mph hoof speed. So you turn around and look south:
(Note: Bike show for scale)
What a pleasant walk this is going to be! There's shade every eighty feet or so, county provided illumination, and there's even nature -- snakes, squirrels, and burrowing owls! Most of them aren't moving, you notice, and why do they all lie there, lifeless, in the middle of the roadway?
Well, as pleasant as that walk sounds, you nevertheless elect to return home across the street for two cans of Mr. Pibb while you wait for the next bus. You're pretty sure that jaywalking the 4 lanes of bidirectional traffic here is legal, as you don't see a crosswalk within 200' in either direction. You also know that every driver is obeying the posted 45mph speed limit on this road, so you elect to time your crossing based on their known distances. You've already worn down a path between the hawthorne bushes on the landscaped median during your first crossing to get to the bus stop, so going back will be a breeze.
"Oh, darn," you say, having missed the bus again...the second time this week. Mr. Grant is gonna be mighty sore with me...
The Siggy Five runs on the hour. If you just missed it, you could stand here under the shade of the 4x4 signpost for 60 minutes. But you've got your three cold babies, and their mouths and your patience can't take an hour waiting for the next bus. So you think "maybe I'll start humping it." You could cover a good range with your 2.4 mph hoof speed. So you turn around and look south:
(Note: Bike show for scale)
What a pleasant walk this is going to be! There's shade every eighty feet or so, county provided illumination, and there's even nature -- snakes, squirrels, and burrowing owls! Most of them aren't moving, you notice, and why do they all lie there, lifeless, in the middle of the roadway?
Well, as pleasant as that walk sounds, you nevertheless elect to return home across the street for two cans of Mr. Pibb while you wait for the next bus. You're pretty sure that jaywalking the 4 lanes of bidirectional traffic here is legal, as you don't see a crosswalk within 200' in either direction. You also know that every driver is obeying the posted 45mph speed limit on this road, so you elect to time your crossing based on their known distances. You've already worn down a path between the hawthorne bushes on the landscaped median during your first crossing to get to the bus stop, so going back will be a breeze.
"Oh, darn," you say, having missed the bus again...the second time this week. Mr. Grant is gonna be mighty sore with me...
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Mix-Used
This is mixed use along Franklin Blvd:
Click on the photo...the sign on the left actually reads: "Mix-used development 25,00 SF retail & 17,000 SF office...Coming soon in Spring 2008." So it's mix-used. And let's humor your author for a moment; let's pretend it's supposed to say 2,500 instead of 25,000 sq ft retail.
Well, spring of ought eight has come and gone. The area looks nothing like Sharon Vu's artistic rendition. And what you can't see is that the parking lot is actually the lot used for the motherbunker, Security Public Storage, the shopping center-turned-suburban warehouse:
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
Let's flip a sand dollar, heads or tails; heads, public storage is retail, tails, it's office space. Seeing how there's only 2,500 sq ft of retail, it must be classified office. I can see it going either way on the ledger rolls at county, and either way it doesn't make any fucking difference. It's a neighborhood killer.
Not only is the one vacancy sign tagged, the second one was shattered by spring winds and never repaired. Never repaired...hmmm...will this too be the fate of the half square mile of now unused parking? All that asphalt, all the vehicle lane striping, all the illumination stands, all the trees and bushes, for all the suburban morons who can't live without or with all their consumer shit...will proceeds from their rents pay for the eventual need to chip-seal that surface? To trim those trees? To re-stripe the parking lanes for the phantom vehicles?
Here's the real rub...this motherbunker sits inside the burnt out center of a suburban doughnut. The city, in an effort to attract another tenant into this strip mall, provided development fees and long term maintenance contracts to the motherbunker to subsidize their building. This is chemotherapy, folks; the cancer is spreading and we've gotta stop it. An empty shopping plaza attracts riff-raff, copper thieves, and pot-smoking teens between the berms of the Morrison Creek canal, and it's gotta stop. Put in a self storage! Yes! That will bring in taxes and revitalize the neighborhood!
This is vibrant, mix-used planning?
Click on the photo...the sign on the left actually reads: "Mix-used development 25,00 SF retail & 17,000 SF office...Coming soon in Spring 2008." So it's mix-used. And let's humor your author for a moment; let's pretend it's supposed to say 2,500 instead of 25,000 sq ft retail.
Well, spring of ought eight has come and gone. The area looks nothing like Sharon Vu's artistic rendition. And what you can't see is that the parking lot is actually the lot used for the motherbunker, Security Public Storage, the shopping center-turned-suburban warehouse:
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
Let's flip a sand dollar, heads or tails; heads, public storage is retail, tails, it's office space. Seeing how there's only 2,500 sq ft of retail, it must be classified office. I can see it going either way on the ledger rolls at county, and either way it doesn't make any fucking difference. It's a neighborhood killer.
Not only is the one vacancy sign tagged, the second one was shattered by spring winds and never repaired. Never repaired...hmmm...will this too be the fate of the half square mile of now unused parking? All that asphalt, all the vehicle lane striping, all the illumination stands, all the trees and bushes, for all the suburban morons who can't live without or with all their consumer shit...will proceeds from their rents pay for the eventual need to chip-seal that surface? To trim those trees? To re-stripe the parking lanes for the phantom vehicles?
Here's the real rub...this motherbunker sits inside the burnt out center of a suburban doughnut. The city, in an effort to attract another tenant into this strip mall, provided development fees and long term maintenance contracts to the motherbunker to subsidize their building. This is chemotherapy, folks; the cancer is spreading and we've gotta stop it. An empty shopping plaza attracts riff-raff, copper thieves, and pot-smoking teens between the berms of the Morrison Creek canal, and it's gotta stop. Put in a self storage! Yes! That will bring in taxes and revitalize the neighborhood!
This is vibrant, mix-used planning?
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Efficiency Has Come
The point that must be taken from energy efficiency, it must, is that energy efficiency has only ever led to more energy use, not less.
Efficiency has come, and demand has risen apace.
The more efficient a car grew, the more of them we built, and the more we used them, the more energy they consumed overall. We equate this with 'standard of living.' Two cars per human rather than one. A fridge in the house, and the spare in the garage...with a chest freezer to boot. Two computers in the home...which has become a much bigger home, with 45 CFL light bulbs instead of a smaller home with 15 incandescents.
Efficiency has come, and demand has risen apace.
Take a look at the corridor between my office area and the entrance to my building:
There are seventeen flourescent fixtures providing corridor light 24 hours a day, every day of the year, as this building is occupied every minute of the day by power system dispatchers. And this corridor is used by humans perhaps no more than 4% per day.
Doing the math: 17 fixtures * 2 bulbs * 40W each + 17 ballasts * ~5W each is a total demand of 1445W * 8760 hours = ~12,600kWh * $.10/kWh = $1,265 per year.
A few months ago, facilities was trying to troubleshoot an electrical problem in the building. They turned off these lights and temporarily strung a set of those yellow plastic lightbulb cage things with CFLs, 15 in total, and there was more than enough light to move about, and the numbers:
15 CFLs * 13W each * 8760 hours * $.10/kWh = $170 per year.
I pointed this out to facilities. But as soon as the lighting problem was corrected, we returned to the lighting in the photo. These lights are on right now, at 5:00 PM on Sunday...with no one in the hallway.
And because refrigerators are so damn efficient, there is one in my area that supports the off and on again lunch habits of 6 people. We aren't required to share any of the other 4 fridges in the building...too far to walk, apparently. At ~600kWh a year, this is another $60.
These convienences are 'quality of life' issues, and so are not to be discussed further. If we changed things, we'd be forced to walk down a slightly darker hallway to a fridge we'd have to share with 'others.' So we don't.
Efficiency has come, and demand has risen apace.
The more efficient a car grew, the more of them we built, and the more we used them, the more energy they consumed overall. We equate this with 'standard of living.' Two cars per human rather than one. A fridge in the house, and the spare in the garage...with a chest freezer to boot. Two computers in the home...which has become a much bigger home, with 45 CFL light bulbs instead of a smaller home with 15 incandescents.
Efficiency has come, and demand has risen apace.
Take a look at the corridor between my office area and the entrance to my building:
There are seventeen flourescent fixtures providing corridor light 24 hours a day, every day of the year, as this building is occupied every minute of the day by power system dispatchers. And this corridor is used by humans perhaps no more than 4% per day.
Doing the math: 17 fixtures * 2 bulbs * 40W each + 17 ballasts * ~5W each is a total demand of 1445W * 8760 hours = ~12,600kWh * $.10/kWh = $1,265 per year.
A few months ago, facilities was trying to troubleshoot an electrical problem in the building. They turned off these lights and temporarily strung a set of those yellow plastic lightbulb cage things with CFLs, 15 in total, and there was more than enough light to move about, and the numbers:
15 CFLs * 13W each * 8760 hours * $.10/kWh = $170 per year.
I pointed this out to facilities. But as soon as the lighting problem was corrected, we returned to the lighting in the photo. These lights are on right now, at 5:00 PM on Sunday...with no one in the hallway.
And because refrigerators are so damn efficient, there is one in my area that supports the off and on again lunch habits of 6 people. We aren't required to share any of the other 4 fridges in the building...too far to walk, apparently. At ~600kWh a year, this is another $60.
These convienences are 'quality of life' issues, and so are not to be discussed further. If we changed things, we'd be forced to walk down a slightly darker hallway to a fridge we'd have to share with 'others.' So we don't.
No SUV Left Behind
I have converged on a view that electrification will reign king in the future. Perhaps the new energy sources to fund this viewpoint will come from a combination of nuclear and renewables, that's my guess.
In my opinion, we are soon going to fully experience increased bidding for accelerating declining net exports from oil exporting countries. You only have to look south to see this in action. Mexico has precipitously declined since 2004, and they are our #2 supplier behind Canada. Keep in mind, that as oil producing countries' demand for oil increases over time, this will lead to accelerating net export declines. Many people are forecasting Mexico to become a net importer of oil in less than ten years.
I personally see this manifested in the upward trend in oil prices since 2001. In the short term, we fluctuate all over the map, but the 7 year trend is up, up, and up. I see this continuing for the next seven years and beyond. When the Japanese man asked the bank teller "why this week do you only give me 110 yen for a dollar when last week it was 112," the teller replied "Fluctuations." "Well, Fluck you Amelicans, too!"
At the same time, we're going to see a move from oil to EV and PHEV and electrified rail. The "No SUV Left Behind" program will wither. Perhaps it's my bias as a utility electrical engineer, but this makes sense to me.
In my opinion, we are soon going to fully experience increased bidding for accelerating declining net exports from oil exporting countries. You only have to look south to see this in action. Mexico has precipitously declined since 2004, and they are our #2 supplier behind Canada. Keep in mind, that as oil producing countries' demand for oil increases over time, this will lead to accelerating net export declines. Many people are forecasting Mexico to become a net importer of oil in less than ten years.
I personally see this manifested in the upward trend in oil prices since 2001. In the short term, we fluctuate all over the map, but the 7 year trend is up, up, and up. I see this continuing for the next seven years and beyond. When the Japanese man asked the bank teller "why this week do you only give me 110 yen for a dollar when last week it was 112," the teller replied "Fluctuations." "Well, Fluck you Amelicans, too!"
At the same time, we're going to see a move from oil to EV and PHEV and electrified rail. The "No SUV Left Behind" program will wither. Perhaps it's my bias as a utility electrical engineer, but this makes sense to me.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
4AM, Two Hours Before Deadline
Over time I want to document the Franklin Blvd. corridor, to describe for posterity the surroundings I ride through. Here's my long time rig:
I've been on this same bike since 1999, 9,000+ miles. Aside from the aluminum frame, everything else was manufauctured elsewhere: The panniers, Canada. The leather seat, England. The entire drivetrain, Japan. The Continental tyres, Germany. The tyre tubes, Taiwan. And I'm going to guess that the handlebar tape and waterbottle were made in China. But because it's a Cannondale, it's Merikan!
Nonetheless, I ride it only on Merikan streets, the most noteworthy of which is my very own Franklin Blvd. Armed with a camera yesterday morning I snapped a few photos of our decrepit landscapes:
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
1.5 miles north of my house, this new development of 115houses units probably built out only 35 of them due to the stalled economic engine of suburban sprawl.
You can't enter/exit from Franklin Blvd. because of this wall, stretching from the canal to the next street. Technically, you can enter it through an always locked gate, put there presumably by fire department codes...a point of egress. What's the probability that the engine would have the keys in the event of a fire?
To soften the blow of the hard wall, the developer installed vegetative units over mulch, because we are masters at using nature to obfuscate shitty design. If I understand things right, they hired an architect to design the wall and a landscape architect to design the shrubbery. Their last words, at 4AM, huddled over their cardboard models, the day before design deadline, must have been "fuck it."
Note the theoretical pedestrians using the sidewalk, an area clearly bustling with vibrant activity, people walking to and fro with shopping bags of groceries from the neighborhood store, walking to visit with the next door neighbors, walking to the park or other civic realm.
Well, the neighborhood storeis was here:
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
This is the Franklin side of the nearest, shuttered market, .9 miles further north.
I've been on this same bike since 1999, 9,000+ miles. Aside from the aluminum frame, everything else was manufauctured elsewhere: The panniers, Canada. The leather seat, England. The entire drivetrain, Japan. The Continental tyres, Germany. The tyre tubes, Taiwan. And I'm going to guess that the handlebar tape and waterbottle were made in China. But because it's a Cannondale, it's Merikan!
Nonetheless, I ride it only on Merikan streets, the most noteworthy of which is my very own Franklin Blvd. Armed with a camera yesterday morning I snapped a few photos of our decrepit landscapes:
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
1.5 miles north of my house, this new development of 115
You can't enter/exit from Franklin Blvd. because of this wall, stretching from the canal to the next street. Technically, you can enter it through an always locked gate, put there presumably by fire department codes...a point of egress. What's the probability that the engine would have the keys in the event of a fire?
To soften the blow of the hard wall, the developer installed vegetative units over mulch, because we are masters at using nature to obfuscate shitty design. If I understand things right, they hired an architect to design the wall and a landscape architect to design the shrubbery. Their last words, at 4AM, huddled over their cardboard models, the day before design deadline, must have been "fuck it."
Note the theoretical pedestrians using the sidewalk, an area clearly bustling with vibrant activity, people walking to and fro with shopping bags of groceries from the neighborhood store, walking to visit with the next door neighbors, walking to the park or other civic realm.
Well, the neighborhood store
(Note: Bike included to show scale)
This is the Franklin side of the nearest, shuttered market, .9 miles further north.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Twenty Ten
South of Elk Grove Blvd., lying in wait, is the grand Laguna Ridge development. The planned design is for 7,767 homes on 1,900 acres, but these 'tough economic times' has halted progress on what would have been the Shining Star, the Crowning Jewel in our suburban slum.
I dunno, perhaps each unit was designed to hold 3.1 human units, or about 24,000 in total. That's 12.5 human units per acre...or a density of 8,000/square mile, which actually seems pretty good, pretty dense relative to Houston or Atlanta. I wonder if I'm doing this calculation correctly.
But it's waiting until 2010, so says all the interested stakeholders, for 8% growth to reappear, when housing comes back with a roar, like wildfire.
By 2010, the scent of arctic drilling will cause oil suppliers today to increase production (with the obvious expectation that future oil will flood the market and cause future prices to drop), and this will lead back to $1.79 gas. You were short-sighted on buying that Chrysler Pacifica and the $2.99 gas guarantee. Laguna Ridge was underwritten (or I should say Master Planned) by cheap gasoline, with not a single bus stop or median income job 'planned' within an 8 mile radius. But then, Elk Grovian single use zoning forbids anything, including strip retail, from lying in proximity to housing units. Strip retail is still present, but at the fringes, at the intersections of the collector roads. They're mixed use on the map, but that means "large format retail with apartments." I have little faith in our city's ability to create a correctly scaled, mixed use development...that isn't isolated from everything else people need access to. I will reserve judgement, but my gut feeling tells me that almost all trips, no matter how short, will require the use of a collector road at Laguna Ridge. "Drive your fucking car(s) if you want to live here," says the coloured brochure.
And and! by 2010 our much ballyhooed Outdoor Strip Mall will finally open, the open air promenade...which today announced it would not open in the fall of '09 as expected. "We're just not seeing the retail sales we'd like to see in Elk Grove." Uh-huh. Postponement until the economy recovers. Seeing how we've never even been in a recession these last two years (we've always maintained positive GDP), how can these be tough economic times? What, 2% growth isn't enough to open more strip retail?
2010. Only 17 months away!
I dunno, perhaps each unit was designed to hold 3.1 human units, or about 24,000 in total. That's 12.5 human units per acre...or a density of 8,000/square mile, which actually seems pretty good, pretty dense relative to Houston or Atlanta. I wonder if I'm doing this calculation correctly.
But it's waiting until 2010, so says all the interested stakeholders, for 8% growth to reappear, when housing comes back with a roar, like wildfire.
By 2010, the scent of arctic drilling will cause oil suppliers today to increase production (with the obvious expectation that future oil will flood the market and cause future prices to drop), and this will lead back to $1.79 gas. You were short-sighted on buying that Chrysler Pacifica and the $2.99 gas guarantee. Laguna Ridge was underwritten (or I should say Master Planned) by cheap gasoline, with not a single bus stop or median income job 'planned' within an 8 mile radius. But then, Elk Grovian single use zoning forbids anything, including strip retail, from lying in proximity to housing units. Strip retail is still present, but at the fringes, at the intersections of the collector roads. They're mixed use on the map, but that means "large format retail with apartments." I have little faith in our city's ability to create a correctly scaled, mixed use development...that isn't isolated from everything else people need access to. I will reserve judgement, but my gut feeling tells me that almost all trips, no matter how short, will require the use of a collector road at Laguna Ridge. "Drive your fucking car(s) if you want to live here," says the coloured brochure.
And and! by 2010 our much ballyhooed Outdoor Strip Mall will finally open, the open air promenade...which today announced it would not open in the fall of '09 as expected. "We're just not seeing the retail sales we'd like to see in Elk Grove." Uh-huh. Postponement until the economy recovers. Seeing how we've never even been in a recession these last two years (we've always maintained positive GDP), how can these be tough economic times? What, 2% growth isn't enough to open more strip retail?
2010. Only 17 months away!
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