City
Repair Petaluma: The long-planned
City Repair Petaluma meeting was held earlier this week. Attendance was good. I counted at least 35 people, but couldn’t
see the entire back row. There was even
a City Councilmember who attended for awhile.
After
viewing the City Repair film and engaging in an extended question and answer
session, City Repair Petaluma organizer Rachel Kaplan asked for ideas on
neighborhoods where City Repair projects might be appropriate.
To our
pleasure, representatives of several neighborhoods immediately responded, most
of them also willing to help in the organizational effort. The identified neighborhoods included D
and Vallejo, D and El Rose, Mountain View and Mission, 2nd and F, Western and
Webster, Western and Fair, and Oakhill-Brewster.
Individual
neighborhood groups then met to exchange contact information and to begin
tossing about ideas.
It remains a long ways from initial
enthusiasm to completed project, but the self-identification of champions was a
good step. I believe that the City Repair process works best when the
progress is slow and steady. The Tuesday
evening meeting was a great slow and steady start. The process will continue. And I’ll
provide occasional updates.
And if anyone would like to be added to
the City Repair List email list, please let me know. I’ll pass along your information to
Kaplan.
Induced traffic:
When I recently wrote about the proposed Rainier Avenue connector in
Petaluma, I noted the phenomenon of induced traffic, an increase in car trips when
new roadways are opened which prevent the promised traffic relief.
In response, I received only a couple of
comments of mild skepticism. Most
readers seem to understand induced traffic.
But when I look at the local papers, I continue to read quotes, many of
them from people who should know better, that Rainier will provide true traffic
relief.
So it’s time to roll out a big gun. Before the rise of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford
reigned as the monarch of urban study and thought. Almost 120 years after his birth, he remains
a key oracle on the theory of cities.
In 1953, Mumford wrote, “No one, it seems,
pays heed to our own grim experience, which is that the more facilities are provided
for the motorcar, the more cars appear.”
In the sixty years since Mumford wrote
those words, no one has successfully rebutted them. But many of our community leaders seem
unaware of the wisdom.
If/Then: I love the field of urban planning, finding the process
fascinating. But that doesn’t mean that
I would expect it to be ripe for a Broadway musical.
Perhaps I’ve been wrong. “If/Then”, a musical about a 40s-something
woman trying to rekindle her life as an urban planner in New York City, is
currently touring the country in hopes of reaching Broadway. And at least planners seem to enjoy it.
“Chasing Ice”: My wife generally does our household
Netflix selections. Last weekend, she came
up with “Chasing Ice”, a documentary on the efforts of photographer James Balog
to record the recession of glaciers throughout much of the Western Hemisphere.
It was an oddly scripted movie, shifting
from the technology of time lapse photography in adverse climates to the
disappointment in the initial photographic failures to Balog’s knee surgery to
the presentation of the results at scientific conferences.
But despite the jumpiness, the movie
worked. The scenes on the glaciers were
cinematically striking. And the film was
a stark reminder of the effects of climate change. In my household, we moved directly from
viewing the movie into a discussion of further carbon reductions we could make
in our home.
Of course, urbanism remains one of the
most effective strategies to slow climate change. Of all the energy savings that we can make in
our daily lives, nearly 70 percent can come solely from living in a walkable
urban setting.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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