The Great Divide

You can go home again. It just won't be the same. So it was discovered as we roamed our old neighborhood, the now "notorious" upper west side of Manhattan. In the day the neighborhood's notoriety came from being sketchy, slummy, and home to a disproportionate number of half-way houses. Columbia hadn't expanded beyond its gates and classic prewar 6 room apartments were divided and sub-divided into "affordable" housing for smaller families.

Notorious now for being described as a bastion of knee jerk liberalism by jerky journalists looking for an easy way to malign the city, the facts on the street are far more complex and interesting. Carrie and I chose Columbus Ave. for a northward stroll from 79th street. The avenue contains all of the trendy and smart shops and restaurants indicative of gentrification, with a particular emphasis on child related toys, clothes, and services. The numbered streets contain the mix of tenants that have been there forever with new families gaining a foothold. As we gazed further up the avenue it was shocking to see new towers standing in what had been the worst of the old hood. The store fronts of this project starting at 97th street contain a block long Whole Foods.







If you turn west on 100th street you enter the great divide. The block contains the 24th police precinct, a library, health center, church playground, and social service center. On the corner of Amsterdam Ave. is a new see thru condo project (apartments start at 1.5 million).









Behind the precinct, to the north, stands the Fredrick Douglass housing project. The original portion of the complex consists of 17 buildings — 5, 9, 12, 17, 18, and 20-stories tall — completed on May 31, 1958 on a 21.76-acre (88,100 m2) site. The development includes 2,054 apartments housing some 4,588 residents. The Frederick Douglass Addition, completed on June 30, 1965, is a 16-story building with 306 residents on .55-acre (2,200 m2) on Amsterdam Avenue between West 102nd and West 103rd Streets.[1]




I don't think there is anyplace where the economic conditions change as fast as they do in NYC. Standing in the middle of this class divide two officers in plain clothes from the 24th are shooting the breeze on the ramp leading into the precinct house. As we approach them with the intent of having one or two questions asked and answered, Dave starts profiling us to his friend. He's funny and clever. He tags us as: "coulda been rich but gave it up for causes, getting along well together, been married forever, probably once lived here and want to find out what's up". All of this is conveyed with a big warm smile, cracking up his friend, a community liaison officer named Phil. I am speechless, a rare condition. "Am I right, Am I right? Gottcha didn't I? And you are way left, liberal, well Ok, not too far left but left right?" I'm looking for pins or some other clues. We are both wearing slacks and light sweaters. "Me I'm in the center. Don't vote. Gave up on them. They're all crooks."

"Hi, I'm Will and this is Carrie, and we did want to get a scope of what has happened and figured you could name it. But what's with this won't vote thing?"

"So you voted, and now you are happy with Obama? Let me guess, Not so." I just got there sooner than you did."

A very special NY minute turns into over an hour of what's happened in the neighborhood, the city, the country. We meet the morning shift as they arrive for work Dave hauls them over to make a point or emphasize one of his. These guys, (the only woman we meet is in fact the captain of the precinct and she can't stay) are sharp, tough, and getting it done (the one murder in the precinct has them all crazy with why. There used to 38 a year on average). Suddenly there is a subject shift. Dave points down to Carrie's sneakers and asks her what she paid for them? Before she can answer he asks me and points down to his own year old no name tennis shoes. He turns us around to point out the woman walking down the street and sotto voce' suggests that her shoes cost hundreds. The small group mumbles their affirmations. We are in the shit now and Will rises to it.


I'll spare you the obvious opening salvos of class war and get to the quick of it. "Once again you guys have missed the target. You are going to lay the blame for the deterioration of this country on a poor black woman's back. That might play in Iowa, but here every day you have visible reminders of who's zoomin who and I don't see any perp walks. One, One of those bankers not 2 miles from here rips off more of your money than every so-called welfare queen in these projects, combined, and you don't raise your voice or cry for justice." Eddie joins the fray: "We have to enter the project for an investigation, enter one of their apartments, there it is, 47 inch TV, cell phone, boy friend with a beemer. Don't tell me they aren't ripping off the system."

"Ok Eddie, lets add it up. Let's take every one of the 5000 residents of these projects, give them all you said, what's it add up to? How about 100 thousand per person. That's 500 million dollars. One guy, one, former Lehman boss Dick Fuld, was paid $485m in salary, bonuses and options between 2000 and 2007. And he destroyed the company. And we are bailing him and his pals out. "

"Don't give me this "but, and" argument, what are you going to do to solve this problem?"

"Here's the problem. If these two parts of the city get any further apart, if the rich keep getting richer leaving these people in despair, and they act out, where are you going to be. History tells me that if the rich man tells you to suppress the poor you're gonna do it. You can't imagine that you have more in common with that poor woman then the guy in Wall Street. You have bought the myth that these poor, lazy, shiftless people are tearing you down. But let me point out the fact that millions of new poor, who thought they had it made, have joined their ranks this time, and they look like you. Are you going to put them down?"

I think we made a tiny inroad. As we left they were less a chorus and more a discussion.

It's Your Money

We took a long weekend in NYC, (before the no-name storm), to eat some Chinese, see the Tim Burton show at the Modern, look for the breaking crocus buds in the park, and catch up with old friends. Dinner at their studio in the way east fifties included some folks who worked at the UN and were preparing for International Woman's Day. A lively conversation ensued in which the definitions of, and objectives of "development" were discussed. It was generally agreed that what we all required was a value shift. That simply having women join the elite crowd of those doing business as usual wasn't acceptable. At this table, as I am sure tables around the world, "Unacceptable" practices focused on the bonuses being distributed to the masters of the financial universe. The scale of this transfer of wealth was incomprehensible. From the article: "How about this. Currently, according to news reports, just 23 top investment banks, hedge funds and other Wall Street firms will get $140 billion in bonuses this year, a sum almost exactly equal to the estimated $142 billion in budget shortfalls for all 50 states in fiscal 2010. Or to put this another way, approximately 300,000 lucky rascals who fiddle with other people’s money on Wall Street are getting bonuses roughly equal to what 300 million Americans will lose for countless needed state services, or pay in the form of higher state taxes to cover state shortfalls. And these bonuses, please remember, are above regular salaries at these 23 Wall Street firms."

To add an international note to the scale of the taking consider the news that the cost to repair Haiti has come in at 11.5 billion.

We are all schooled in the excessive behavior of the wealthy and powerful. From David down we have read of the great, falling for the pretty young thing, building ridiculous palaces, squandering their nation's capital, venturing off on land grabs. Nothing seems to compare with the current excess, and the hubris that accompanies it, of those who mismanage the world's collective wealth, and get paid for their mistakes. They may have destroyed the world as we know it.

Dinner was concluded on notes of bafflement. The best guess as to how the world was going to solve this economic crisis was that we would inflate our way out of it. But no one could imagine what was in the minds of the men who took so much off the table.

We needed to walk off dinner. We were staying on the upper west side and we chose to walk cross town to catch an uptown train. We didn't map our route. It was governed by the pattern of red lights. Walk west, hit a light, turn north, hit another light, walk west again. In the course of this chicane we passed The NY Palace Hotel, The University Club, The Peninsula Hotel, and The Metropolitan Club. All haunts of the super rich. I paused outside the iron gates. "What was consistent to all of these places," I asked. And there they were. Double parked up and down the block: The limos, the town cars, the black pariahs. In a world in which any smart rap singer can acquire the house on the hill, drink the DP, get tickets to a Yankee's game, it is obvious that the last vestige of privilege is the ability to park where you want. This is the most exclusive club as civic employees have learned. No more will they be allowed to abuse their "official business", right to park placards, they toss on their dash-boards. Nothing pisses off the public more than to know parking rights are being abused. Seinfeld learned the hard way that wealth and fame just don't cut it when it comes to the ultimate perk. He was called out when his driver abused the privilege.


So that's it? That's what the hundreds of millions a year buys? That's all there is?

Not quite. The next morning our stroll to the station was interrupted by the screaming sirens of not one, but tens of cop cars preceding and following the blacked out GMC. We couldn't see in but the smart money was on Hillary. Clearly the ultimate perk isn't having the place to park, It's the motorcade.The ability to avoid red lights, stop traffic, and have the path cleared for you on your race to the next fundraiser.

Social Studies

I wasn't prepared for my visit to Taos Pueblo. I had been schooled in all the proper cliches; cowboys and indians as a child, giving way to the tougher reality of Russell Means and the American Indian Movement as a radical younger man. I have experienced first hand the relative poverty of the Seminole in the swamps of the Everglades, and witnessed the growth of the casino culture that now permeates the tribes. I had my Native American education. While traveling in the Southwest I resisted the traditional expressions of Native culture, the "craft stores", the fry bread stands. It seemed all too scripted. I was more impressed with an installation in Santa Fe, "Art Without Reservation".




Here were new artists, drawing on their traditions but now clearly "modern" and integrated into mainstream culture.

I was talking to locals in Santa Fe, old friends, about this experience and they advised the trip to Taos. http://www.taospueblo.com/ I feared a Disney ride. "Stay away from the casino," they warned, the rest is the real deal. It's been occupied for 1000 years" For me the real deal was our guide, a 20 something college student on summer break and very secure in who he was. What he understood about the artists on display in Santa Fe was that their art was for us, the white guys with the money. They were about breaking through, crossing over, being respected on our terms. What he wanted Carrie and me to see, and touch, and taste was the core of his tradition. He wanted us to dip into Red Willow Creek, the stream that provides all the water for the Pueblo. He took us inside the jewelry studio of a wizened old craftsman, crafting the silver that the tribespeople wore. He feed us a "pickle" and sweet drink sold from a jug on a board spanned across two plaster buckets. "You are going to hear a ton of BS." he assured us "No one lives here anymore, everyone left for the creature comforts, that kind of thing." "Truth is people come and go. But they never leave the tribe." He showed how they powered everything they needed with propane. Told us they had been given exclusive rights to graze and harvest buffalo for a commercial meat market. He made sure we walked through the adobe buildings, "America's first condo", he joked, and then sped off in his pick-up at the end of his shift. It was complicated.

This from the wiki:
"The deep feeling of belonging to a community, summed up in their phrase, “we are in one nest,” has held the Taos people together. Both men and women are expected to offer their services or “community duties,” when needed. One should be cooperative and never allow their own desires to be destructive of the community’s interest. One of Taos’s strongest institutions is the family. Descent on both the father and the mother’s side of the family is equally recognized. Each primary family lives in a separate dwelling so when a couple gets married, they move to their own home. With relatives so near by, everyone is available to help care for the children. The elderly teach the young the values and traditions that have been handed down, which protects the integrity of the Taos culture."


It got more complicated when our friends suggested that we attend the annual corn dance in the Santo Domingo Pueblo. We were cautioned to appreciate the fact that what we were about to experience was not for our benefit. This was a centuries old tradition, not a pow-wow for consumption by gringos.

Hundreds of visitors sat on a berm on the edge of the plaza fronting the pueblo. Two elders walked carefully over the ground, I'm going to guess 4 acres, picking up small stones, anything that might impede the dancers. Then the sound, the roar of drums is heard. The drummers from one tribe enter the space. Then the babies appear. The children led by their elders, are adorned in tribal dress, some of their bodies are painted in adobe mud, and they are moving in the dance step they have mastered as young as three. Soon the plaza is filled with dancers, hundreds of family members, ranks and files, adorned with crowns, and bells, and rattles, and skins, all cued by the drums to move in an elaborate choreography, a thousand years in the making. Tribe yields the space to tribe (they have come from other pueblos) and the succession of dancers proceeds throughout the day. Suddenly it ends. We are not 4 feet from a row of dancers. A young man shape shifts before our eyes. He is back from the trance he has been in for the last hour and asks his buddy, "So I have to change and then we'll meet up, cool with you?"

The above is so not any piece of any curriculum I have been exposed to. This trip into the American reality is a must do for any and all of us and would be a critical "field trip" for me and my fellow students of any age. What is happening with Native American Studies to a great degree is concerned with the integration of the
Indian kids into the mainstream, or protecting their culture. Reforming the teaching of Thanksgiving seems to be a big issue.

What is not happening is the wider exposure to the life lessons to be learned by example, of the multigenerational "dance" and the meaning for the rest of us.

When a Native American professor out of Yale develops a revised curriculum unit in American History for implementation in a New Haven magnet school. I get interested.
It is troubling to say the least when you scan the curriculum at the school for which the course was prepared and find no evidence that it is present.

C.A. Bower, a professor of great influence for those of us concerned with environmental studies, has bemoaned the loss of tradition, in the name of neo-liberal transformative education.

The following is an excerpt from an article posted on his web site:

Title: Is Transformative Learning the Trojan Horse of Western Globalization?
Author: C. A. Bowers, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Oregon


It is important to acknowledge that the rise of liberal/Enlightenment ideas in the late
18th and 19th century led to basic improvements in the lives of the people of Western Europe who had been oppressed by feudal ideas and institutions—and by the authoritarian political systems that were equally resistant to change. The emphasis on the authority and power of critical reflection to overturn unjust traditions, the idea that change can lead to social progress, the view of the individual as having the power of self-determination, and the idea that new forms of knowledge will mitigate the ravages of the illness and the stultifying nature of work, led to important advances. But it also needs to be kept in mind that the widespread acceptance in the West of these ideas also coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. And more importantly, these liberal ideas had no self-limiting principle. That is,the dominant motivation has been to achieve more and faster progress, more reliance on critical reflection (increasingly by experts promoting the development of new technologies and markets), more labor saving technologies (and now the elimination of the need for workers), newer drugs (and the control of the American Congress to ensure the growing dominance of the drug industry), and more self-determination—including self-determination in the construction of knowledge and values. The lack of any self-limiting principles, which made these liberal ideas even more problematic when they were merged with the market liberalism of John Locke, Adam Smith, and, later, Herbert Spencer, becomes especially evident when we consider the current drive to turn every aspect of the environmental and cultural commons into market opportunities—and to convert the entire world to a survival of the fittest business mentality.

What from the beginning of human history has been understood as the commons, and
which exists today in various state of viability in the diverse cultures of the world, is the only alternative to the way in which the West’s industrial culture is creating greater dependence upon Western style consumerism and technologies. The nature of the commons varies from culture to culture, and from bioregion to bioregion. What they have in common is that much of the culture’s symbolic patterns as well as the natural systems of the bioregion are available to the members of the community on a non-monetary basis. That is, they have not been enclosed—that is, privatized, commodified, monetized, incorporated into an industrial process, and so forth. This general account of the commons does not mean that all of the culturally diverse commons where entirely free of political systems that gave certain groups
special advantages—including the right to restrict the commons to the bare essentials for sustaining life, such as access to water, soil for growing small crops, animals, traditions of ceremonies, patterns of reciprocity, intergenerational knowledge of how to use medical plants, preparing food, and so forth. To make the point more directly, the commons should not be understood as always free of status systems and the unequal use of power. On the other hand, many of the cultural commons have been and still are characterized by local decision-making—an important phenomena that is now being undermined by the World Trade Organization and capitalistic forms of enclosure where decision about the use of the commons is now made by corporations and private owners who are unaffected by their decisions. The enclosure (privatization) of municipal water systems, as well as the corporate ownership and sale of supposedly “pure” bottled water, are examples of how the process of enclosing the commons also undermines local democracy.

What we experienced in Taos is a living example of an authentic commons in action. There are lessons to be learned there.

New Gang in Town

I began my career in rural Appalachia struggling to help the working poor earn a living wage. Employers exploited workers, keeping them in line by using fear and intimidation. Community organizing was an obvious response. By coming together in an organization that approximated a gang, workers had a better chance to appeal for fairness.

The widely circulated AP story "Jobless professionals vie for holiday sales work" By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD and MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writers put a face on the current unemployment crisis.
AP – In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009, Mara Proctor arranges merchandise at Sticks boutique in Kansas …

Mara, and the 6 million former professionals like her, are terribly alone. Having done everything the society asked of her, she finds herself discarded. Despite having ample cause for fury, her survival strategy is to get to work, any work will do.

I have a suggestion for Mara, form a gang. Not one of those groups who grope around trying to create a better resume or network, hoping against hope to find a way back into the system that just failed them. No, a real gang that pools their resources and begins with the premise that they do not want to get back to business as usual.

The first principle of the gang they should form is that society has failed them. They signed the social contract, but they got no security. They will take it as a truth that if you locate a problem that one person has, ten thousand others have the same problem. In some basic way, society has failed the majority of its citizens. The gang's job will be to identify and rectify those failures. This is Mara's opportunity. Mara should assess a set of needs that are common in her locale, and begin to solve those needs.

Let's get the ball rolling with a short list based on areas of opportunity that are fairly common, one of which Mara might want to exploit.
Programs are beginning to assist seniors in their transport needs.
Mara starts a car service, contracting with seniors, parents, and commuters.

Persons are struggling to eat right. Home chefs are but one new start-up.
Mara could do that or assist persons in their homes to rid their lives of junk food and teach the basics of healthy food prep to the entire family.

Schools are failing to provide the skill sets that Mara and her peers need to survive. Mara could tailor teaching sessions to the job skills required by specific corporations. Different then job training that is rarely specific, this concept begins with the employer and moves the training off site. States are starting to experiment with funded models that she might want to explore.

Mara might find a commercial building suffering a lack of tenants. This problem is only going to get worse. At the same time her state, and others, are going to suffer drastic budget cuts and education will not be immune. Mara proposes to the building owners and the existing tenants that what she wants to develop is a charter school, the organizing basis of which is that it is geared to provide real world office experience to its students.

This list is just suggestive. To develop any project Mara is going to need help. Enter the gang. For any of these suggestions to become a reality will require enormous amounts of energy. But it has to start with Mara and her gang, getting off their knees.

Who knows what she and her pals will come up with. The important thing is for her to form an alliance with a small group who share her motivation.
Maybe after a successful launch, her most ambitious project will be to replicate this process. "New Starts" might be their logo.

They're Back

They're back:
From the gang that brought you the economic collapse of 2008.

The building and allied trades, has been the most successful economic enterprise in human history. They formed a perfect alliance with government at all levels, becoming the largest donor in most campaigns. The result has been the pairing of interests so that government revenue is tied to developer success in bringing tax generating projects to ground.

The fact is that to develop, the building industry needs land. In the past they supported planning and development boards that ripped out entire neighborhoods in all of our major metropolises, giving them the space they needed to construct new projects. They created language,"highest and best use", that sanctified the process. They determined what the half life of a building was and if creative destruction wasn't rapid enough, they destabilized entire neighborhoods by red-lining, lax policing, or finding some other incentive (removal of politically weak minorities). In one of the more amazing acts of political manipulation the building industry got tax payers to foot the bill for the Impacts, (costs of schools, water treatment, public safety) of their developments.

They supported "white flight" and built the suburbs that sprawled across the countryside. When the price of gas rose, and it appeared there might be advantages to inner city living, they stimulated gentrification and created new "workforce" housing near the plants that hired the former inner city resident they displaced. They got highways and ramps built to facilitate access to their projects again at tax payer expense.

This kind of manipulation is not easy and they need the appearance of independent thinkers to rationalize their behavior. For example, when an argument is needed to support the myth that more building will create a bigger tax base, it helps to have a think tank to create the story.

To that end the industry created the Urban Land Institute (ULI). This group includes every major mortgage bank, builder, developer, real estate sales firm, and even many government agencies send representatives as members. They publish, hold conferences, train youth, and steer development by creating trend analysis.

Some of their hits include urging the FED to support the idea that everyone deserves to own a home, and deregulating the banking practices that stood in the way of loans for people who couldn't afford them. They got the right of eminent domain to include taking private land for the benefit of private developers. They made it illegal to have more than one head of household in a residence, and saw to it that there was a strict separation of work and living spaces. They define what space is, what building material can be used to create it, and who can build the space, all in an attempt to suggest a shortage of available space, creating the opportunity for yet more building.

Every effective monopoly overreaches and in this case they created a doozy. In the wake of the disaster of their overbuilding, over leveraging, and over lending, they have created the greatest economic debacle in the history of mankind.

They have an enormous problem. After transferring the blame for the collapse on the hapless home owner, they have to concoct another scheme to keep their engine going. They count for over half of the national economy. Talk about "too big to fail". They use other people's money and even the average citizen is starting to get the fact that if they fail, we pick up the tab.

Opportunities are being created as I write this. They are creating new wastelands,
taking down structures they couldn't sell and turning their backs on the suburbs they created.
The effect of this on the individual is to wipe out a lifetime of saving, belie the myth the real estate is a good investment, and that home ownership, as defined by the industry, is a noble objective. The industry needs a new set of suckers, and it is setting about creating them.

The ULI concluded their annual conference in San Francisco last week and their proceedings are fascinating. Here are some highlights:
ULI "Icons" have advice they share with attendees.

Emerging Trends in Real Estate®, released this week at ULI’s Annual Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
Emerging Trends predicts that investment and development will start to pick up steam in a couple of years. In the meantime, those who are in a position to do so should buy or hold multifamily; buy hotels; buy distressed condos and second homes; buy land; buy or hold industrial; hold office; and apply a "triage" approach to retail.
Looking past the recession, "The future is about green development, infill, and transit-oriented development."

The panel discussed two main demographic groups that will drive the next decade’s housing market: Generation Y and their parents (the aging baby boomers). Looking past the recession, "The future is about green development, infill, and transit-oriented development."

In other words: If they play their cards right, they can get a whole new generation of people with no experience to buy the idea that they are going to build them the green future we demand. As for their parents, who they just wiped out, and the brown and black immigrants who barely speak the language, they will validate new multiple family dwellings.

And they concluded: "The bad news is that it is unlikely that enough new housing can be built in urban areas to meet this growing demand. The result is likely to be rising urban housing costs--good for developers and owners and bad for homebuyers and renters with limited funds."

Let me tell you what that means in plain english. When a developer applies to the commission of a "built out" city for permission to build yet more, higher, denser property for which he is not willing to contribute additional costs of operating the services that are necessary to sustain it, and is requesting public money and tax forgiveness, he will use the argument that the new young workers need these places if they are to move here, and it will increase the tax base.

The city will fall deeper in debt, the tax burden will increase, and a new class of home buyers will suffer the ravages of the second wave of housing destruction.

The reality as reported by Fortune Magazine is more realistic.

Bikes-A-Million

We read the NYT story on the destruction of bikes in the Paris share program with sadness. The French sociological perspective is that the program is troubled by the inequality of persons who are acting out a salvo of class warfare. Could be.

I lived through the Provo white bike program in Amsterdam and witnessed the same destruction 35 years ago. That failure and evidence that humans seemingly won't maintain that in which they have no personal stake, motivated the antipathy of The Tragedy of the Commons thesis of Garrett Hardin. He was wrong then and those who snicker are wrong now. But not nearly as wrong as the silly but well intentioned civil servants in Paris, and their followers, constructing complex multi million dollar bike rental programs complete with corporate sponsors. (In the day, you went to a bike rental store and borrowed a bike).

I think the most important contributing factor in the Paris Debikel is the fact that the bow ties who designed this program had NO street smarts! I am afraid that they represent the legions of sustainable opportunists who believe that the answer to our environmental problems will be to build our way out, create green jobs, and be the next cool thing in the process.

Smart city dwellers know that their commuter, around town bike, is likely to be stolen. They buy them by the thousands for tens of dollars. They scrounge the millions of summer rentals that are blown out at the end of a season. They reclaim the bikes of the graduating college kids who leave them as they move on. They buy them at yard sales from people who are moving up or out of the sport. They know that police auctions are a great place to buy a bike on the cheap. Millions of bikes are retrofitted every year by smart riders looking for a set of wheels. Some of these recycled bikes are the stuff of legend.


Smart cities are adapting programs that begin with biker's needs. Bike stations are becoming more widespread The problems of commuting to work are being addressed and are discussed at length here.


That is not to say that bike sharing is doomed. Three days before the Paris story ran the Times featured a group ride to a Princeton based program.

There's hope. It just might be class warfare.

Granny Flats and why you want them

The best definition of an ADU comes from an issue of New Urban News, Dec 2001:

"Granny flats add flexibility and affordability. 
In several new urban communities, accessory dwelling units are strong sellers and offer benefits to both home owners and developers.
Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) appear under many aliases — granny flats, garage apartments, carriage houses, ancillary units — and they almost invariably show up on a checklist of what sets new urban communities apart from conventional subdivisions. They are by no means ubiquitous, but developers from diverse projects report that granny flats have become a popular amenity and an important selling point.
For some home owners, the most attractive aspect of ADUs is the potential for extra income from renting out the unit. Other home owners view the extra space as a flexible addition that can be used as a home office, as lodging for teenage children or elderly family members, or as a guest room with great privacy.
From a developer’s perspective, ADUs provide an extra tier of housing options — affordable units that can attract people from diverse age and income groups. Another benefit is safer and more lively alleys. With more “eyes on the street,” children and adults are more likely to use the alley for play and socialization".

The article goes on to discuss great examples of win-win opportunities where the concept is implemented, and though describing new housing, it establishes the concept. It could be applied to existing stock through smart adaptation. Some companies are starting to build portable structures to be moved into back yards as needed.

This idea however is very controversial. One story jumped out at me, This from Binghamton NY:
Profs use Facebook info to evict BU students
Originally Published 2007-12-07
By Erika Neddenien
Six Binghamton University students face eviction after their neighbors — two BU professors — used Facebook to determine that they were in violation of the West Side’s R-1 zoning law, Binghamton’s Mayor Matt Ryan said.

The R-1 zoning law, which restricts a chunk of Binghamton’s West Side to “factual and functional families,” is typically only enforced when reports are made about a violation. The issue made headlines in 2000 when two dozen students were evicted from their homes.

To try to get a grip on this "problem" The city commissioned "A Report of the Mayor’s Commission on Housing and Home Ownership"
The result was to suggest the creation of an "overlay district" in which "student housing" was encouraged.
BUT: Within their summary the planners identified the following strategy to limit:"Rebuttable presumption / presumptive limit approach: This approach is a somewhat complex concept. What it amounts to is setting a numerical occupancy limit, which can be waived under specified circumstances, based on the number of unrelated tenants who can live together in a dwelling unit. The limit is waived if the landlord (or tenants) can demonstrate that the tenants are the “functional equivalent” of a traditional family—based on criteria set forth in the Zoning Code. (Most municipalities throughout the U.S. employ this functional family equivalent approach, as a result of Constitutional rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the highest courts of most states.) The presumptive limit approach is further complicated by the need to decide whether to apply the same presumptive limit to dwelling units in R-1, R-2, and R-3 districts- -and, if not, how to draw principled distinctions. It also creates endless debates about the rationality of applying the same presumptive limit to large versus small houses, and to houses with many versus few bedrooms " Students considered this a ghetto that limited their choices.
The city in an attempt to quell student outrage at what they conceive of as restrictive zoning addressed them with respect citing they were only interested in their safety. Too many persons in a home is a fire hazard.

There you have it. This isn't the first time the issue of non traditional families living together caused a ruckus. "Exclusionary rules" have been challenged around the country with varying degrees of success. The Fair Housing Act is a response to handicapped persons wanting to live together and having been rebuked. Same sex marriage prohibitions run right into this issue of what constitutes a family or the "head of a household".

In 1985 the following abstract appeared:
CHALLENGING THE EXCLUSIONARY IMPACT OF FAMILY DEFINITIONS IN AMERICAN MUNICIPAL ZONING ORDINANCES
MARSHA RITZDORF Iowa State University
Copyright 1985 Urban Affairs Association

Although not often included in the literature devoted to exclusionary zoning practices, an examination of the use and abuse of family definitions in American municipal zoning ordinances is important to those who are concerned with the revitalization of American cities and suburbs. Many of the ideas suggested for innovative reuse of existing housing are linked to the family definition. Accessory units in single-family dwellings and shared housing are two examples. This paper briefly examines the history of family definitions in municipal zoning ordinances, reviews the major court decisions concerning their use and discusses the relevance of the continued use of family definitions when current demographic changes are taken into consideration.

Since then the issue keeps bubbling up. New Urbanists, trying to increase density and walkability in their planned communities meet resistance. Whereas the article at the top sites eyes on the street as a positive. The following article in Reason Magazine argues against it:
"Crime-Friendly Neighborhoods
How "New Urbanist" planners sacrifice safety in the name of "openness" and "accessibility"


ADUs marketed with seniors in mind are doing better. ECHO is a program that is gaining traction. In some cases it pays to be old.

Here are other examples of places struggling with the concept. Denver,
Boston, Provo, and here is a great story from Santa Cruz.

For our purposes it is safe to say that those of us looking for creative ways to solve the housing crisis the idea of ADUs makes sense. Were this to be a widely adopted housing pattern, you can imagine a set of dwellings which enhance "family values". Owners could shift the footprint of their homes as their family composition changes without having to uproot. Homes could expand and contract as needs determined. New homeowners offset mortgage costs. If their family grows they move into the ancillary spaces. When family members move on, the now empty nester has space to rent again. This is an idea whose time has come. Be vigilant and attend those dull zoning hearings. Your life depends on it.

Off the Grid

What's the meaning of this? More than the rather obvious concept of removing oneself from the big guys who supply power, the more insidious consequence is that persons who actually do move off the grid, do so as a form of insulation from the rest of us, in community. In and of itself, this movement wouldn't concern me. There is nothing new here. What does concern me is that the leading proponents of environmental reform, including a MacArthur genius grantee, have moved themselves off the grid, and model a totally irrelevant mode of existence. They also give ammo to those who argue against eco reform by exploiting the hypocrisy of those who don't "do as they say".

My personal top four include Bill McKibben whose home was featured in the Sierra Club magazine.

Mr. McKibben has actually argued for strengthening community. Consider the title of a book published about the same time he was finishing his house: "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future." Community isn't driving to the farmers market. Community is a network of goods and services that supply ones daily life with the riches that far surpass what one could or should assemble on their own. And what does he model? A free standing single family home in the countryside. So if we extrapolate. Even if the billions of the rest of us could afford this "style" of life, can we imagine what the planet would look like with billions of homes sprawled across the earth.

A quote from the Rocky Mountain Institute website reads: For many supporters and visitors, Rocky Mountain Institute® is synonymous with Amory's private residence in Old Snowmass, Colorado. Completed in 1984 and upgraded continually since then, the facility remains a state-of-the-art showcase of efficiency ideas. Amory Lovins' house was just featured in a WSJ article which they point to on their website. In the article it is demonstrated that the current set of retrofits to the 4000 plus square foot house in which Mr. Lovins grows bananas, are really not affordable, yet they demonstrate the possibility of the retrofits we might attempt to our existing housing stock. Well the guy in Houston who tried it rejected most of the technology, and again one has to wonder what are we modeling here? Oh to be rich and afford a home in which I can grow my own bananas.


The staff of the institute has been moved to a nearby preserve and the best I could discover was that the nearest food coop was 19 miles away.

When we visited Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti and arranged a lunch the attendant acolytes were so nervous they literally surrounded the great man and answered my questions for him. Questions such as why is there a question mark on the web page "an Urban Laboratory?" Is the idea to be self sufficient, living as they are, in the desert, 65 miles north of Phoenix? There was a lot of mumbling.


When on the web site click on the Solare project and realize that what Soleri has always had in mind is a rejection of the current fact of life of the cities we now occupy and instead dreamed the possibility of what his vision of the future might look like. But Arcosanti exists in the here and now. What are we to make of the tension between the guy who is trying to grow food on his small plot at Arcosanti, fighting the folks who budget concrete building material in front of his need for water? True story. People cycle thru here. People don't ask the tough questions and are being diverted from the hard work of repairing their own lives.

Another project that gets a lot of ink is Earthship.

Drive 15 miles out of Taos, into the desert, and come upon the early adopters of rammed earth, funky, alternative structures. One of the ironies is that most of them are for sale, aftermarket sale. They range in price from the low 160s to 500K and boy are they off the grid. Again so what's the biggee? Desert rats have been doing this for years. But if you polled an average population of persons plugged into eco-friendly design- build concepts, processes liked rammed earth and recycled tires would come up a lot. The Financial Times did a piece on the build your own movement and if you visit these sites you will see groups of young people rediscovering the quality crafts of post and beam construction, rammed earth, cob walls, and hay bales construction. Great for them. And some of them are looking for plots of land as I write this. They also have interesting bedfellows. I am sure that both groups cringe at the thought they are moving in the same direction.

But, the facts of life as we live them are that now most of us reside in cities.
And these numbers are growing.

David Owen is releasing a new book; Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability
that expands his original New Yorker article on NYC being the greenest city.

Living within one of our built existing environments of course places us squarely on the grid. Would that the champions of rebuilding these places got as much attention in the pop culture as did their back to the earth cousins.

Click on the image of Majora Carter and be taken to her TED talk

Thou Art

Best Products stores shattered the easy distinction between a building as functional, or as an object of art. These early big box stores were designed by the firm "SITE | architecture, art & design" ( Sculpture in the Environment ). A pictorial review of these stores is here.


The fusion of structure as art and design was shocking. I remember near wrecks as people driving by, slowed to view the structure standing near a parkway in Richmond, VA. But the firm had a serious purpose which drives them to this day: To break new ground.

As this project was winding down the firm created a book "Highrise of Homes" which was published in 1982. The following is a slide show of some of the images from that book, forwarded to me from the firm:


As I was preparing this blog I wrote to Jim Wines, now professor of Architecture at Pa State and told him of my intent to revisit this concept. He replied:

Dear Will,
I received your inquiry concerning the Highrise of Homes project. I am delighted that you are pursuing its translation into reality. SITE actually had a client in Japan who was ready to build a version of the idea around 1985, but the negotiations never quite worked out.

As you may know, the project has been getting quite a bit of attention over the past couple of years; so the prospect for serious consideration seems to be growing. In fact, I will be a keynote speaker at the Sarkozy sponsored conference on green design for Paris at the Pompidou Center in October, where HoH will be featured. Also, the project will be on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for their big Post-modern exhibit in 2011. So the timing of your interest is probably pretty good....

Thanks again for your interest.
Best regards,
James Wines

The text of the book included criticisms of the project, responses, a lot of architecture speak, and an epilogue that I quote from here:


"The Highrise of Homes is a far from perfect solution, yet it functions as a viable response to an imperfect world--a world of too many people trying to occupy too little land surface. The project is a condition of experimentation which accounts for and tries to deal with the conflicting desires of city dwellers to enjoy the cultural advantages of urban life, without forfeiting the sense of independence and identity associated with the house and garden. In an era when the mansion on the hill and the cottage in the country are becoming increasingly less attainable--and, indeed, less sociologically justifiable--the Highrise of Homes may represent the new "democratic skin" of multi-level habitat. It is architecture as the collective biography of its inhabitants. It is architecture as a chronicler of pluralism and a celebration of choice. It is architecture as the negation of the "master builder" concept that has dominated this century. It is architecture as a form of spontaneous urban theatre. It is architecture that is, at once, visionary and very traditional."

I can't be sure but I have a hunch that at least one member of the team had a tongue placed deeply in their cheek. At the least the sense of having given in to a cultural imperative is expressed in this concept: If the western pattern of dwelling is so fixed in the minds of the consumer then lets give it to them in a way that works us out of some of the attendant problems of sprawl, and at the same time incorporates an adaptive reuse of the existing infrastructure.

Anthropologists will tell you that the modern "fireplace" is a vestigial manifestation of a primitive need to gather around the warming hearth. Builders concerned with the consequences of heat loss, build in inserts, insulating screens, and finally the ultimate ventless fireplaces.

These adaptations respect the fact of the reluctance to change while adapting the dwelling to the demands of modern conservation. In the case of Highrise of Homes, SITE has retained the core concepts of cluster efficiency while suggesting to those who resist the loss of their identity, they can have it all. That's not Art. That is an artful solution to a practical problem.

Crossover Dreams

A skill worth cultivating in an urban setting is to actually take advantage of the wealth of cultural diversity in residence. We celebrate how diverse we are, we read of the happenings around town, but the fact is we rarely if ever actually venture beyond our respective ghettos to get up close and personal with those with whom we live in close proximity. How do I know? Because whenever I am strolling the aisles of the ethnic grocery I am shopping, I am virtually the only round eyed, white, english only speaking, guy in the store. I have also noticed an ethnic food aisle growing in my supermarkets, yours too. The difference is the super market offerings have been culled down to the most neutral "suggestions" of the real thing, without actually being the real thing. I give you Pace salsa, or Prego spaghetti sauce.

Locavore's beware, almost none of the food I am going to suggest you consider is grown locally, but then neither is your pepper, salt, grain, cinnamon, raisins. or nuts. Cities of at least 75,000 are going to be host to stores that cater to one or more of these recent immigrant populations: Chinese (which has now evolved into a pan asian emporium), Indian, which ought to be considered the entire sub continent, Middle Eastern which usually includes the Mediterranean crescent Greece,Turkey, Cyprus, and Hispanic, which again sweeps the entire latin world and demands that you appreciate the distinctions between peoples from South America, Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, and African.

Shopping expeditions would be worth it for the sauces and condiments alone. If you crave the fire then you haven't lived till you bring home a sambal, sirancha, or banana sauce, or one of the variety of chili pastes available in any Asian market. Kimchee and those bags of ground chilies will lift you to new heights. New to my larder are large containers of fried "shallots" and fried garlic. Unlike the onion and garlic powders on supermarket shelves, these flakes are rich in flavor, and have real substance.

Let me share the items I regularly find in my Asian markets. Fresh vegetables including the ubiquitous Napa, long "japanese" eggplants, pea shoots, various forms of what I call Bok Choi but enjoy their own identity, sprouts, guava, persimmons, garlic, melons, and frozen purees of exotic fruits (also in Hispanic markets). I will create my own dim sum brunch from dumplings found in the freezer case. Fresh noodles, and dried formed from wheat, rice, and bean flours. Cans of pickled veggies, shoots, sprouts of things I almost can't imagine eating but enjoy. There is a cultural education to be had in these aisles.

Condiments include wide varieties of soy sauces, vinegars, bean spreads, mushrooms and dried blossoms and buds. Chinese style sausage is a treat as are the 6 packs of quail and ducks from Canada. In big city markets there is usually fish for sale and you won't believe how cheap it is. Freshness isn't an issue as most of the available fish are swimming. Spices round out the trip for me and I am always on the lookout for something advertised in native script which I have to ask about. There are never less than 10 distinct varieties of rice available. Try red.

The hispanic markets often have prepared foods available to eat in or carry out. Fried things, roasts, rice, and forms of stuffed packets filled with meats or veggies. We've mentioned hot sauces and herein the variety can be excruciating, both in scope and fire. The hispanic branded spices and dried pepper varieties are exciting and challenge the buyer to start to experiment with their own takes on moles and adobes. Olive oils from Spain, coffees from Miami based roasters, rices and a wide variety of beans are always on the shelves. Fruit drink offerings are exotic and make great mixers if you're into that. Many sizes and shapes of bananas (yes there are more than just one), plantains, and other roots can be the source of carbo loads. Excellent corn meal is always available.


Indian stores often sell travel tickets, pots and pans and videos among the dal, and curries and chutneys. Saris, scarfs, and rice cookers round out the experience.

Middle eastern stores also have types and styles of feta and other mid med cheeses, breads flat and twisted, stuffed veggies, olives, peppers, and prepared giant beans. Jars of eggplant and pepper spreads are delicious and easy to serve as a side or a sauce. Jams and canned fruits are usually high in fruit content and Halvah the ever addictive sweet sits on the counter near the cashier, "ok throw in a pound".


Russian immigrants are starting to aggregate and the market follows. In Chicago and NY Polish neighborhoods are redolent with the tang of kielbasa and other deli meats and treats.. Why wouldn't you visit? You will never buy a Hillshire smoked sausage again.

The point is: When coming to terms with what benefits accrue to those living in smart, sustainable, urban places, you might stop into the local market and leave some bread and while in the process pick up an entirely new set of resources to sustain, both your body and mind. You might just stay for coffee, tea, and a bowl of soup. You will extend the borders of your neighborhood. The true spirit of community.