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Background: With
the only exception being a time-out for New Year’s resolutions, my last four posts (one, two, three, and four) have been about encouraging attendance at a
series of upcoming meetings on financially sustainable development in the North
Bay. It’s a pitch that will continue
today.
But instead
of repeating the logistical information for the meetings one more time, I’ve
created a page with the key data. (Please note the meeting times have changed
since earlier communication and are now 6:00pm.) Please share the page with others, encourage
attendance, and check with me if there are questions.
Back to the sales
pitch.
StrongTowns
and Urban3 will be presenting at the meetings.
However, perhaps unfairly, my focus has been primarily on
StrongTowns. I love the data crunching done
by Urban3, but I still look to StrongTowns for my urbanist thinking. In part, it’s because StrongTowns is a
non-profit advocacy group while Urban3 is a consultant. In part, it’s because I’m a StrongTowns
member. But mostly, it’s because
StrongTowns has a wealth of pertinent and motivating material on their website,
from StrongTowns staff and StrongTowns members.
Sometime
around my 45th birthday, I found myself thinking differently when gift-giving
occasions approached. When folks asked
what I wanted, I still had ideas about books, music, or clothes to suggest, but
what I really wanted was time.
Not more
years at the end of my life, although I wouldn’t turn those down, but more
hours in the day.
Time enough,
after the daily commitments to work and family were covered, to partake of the
ever-growing wealth of information that was so beguiling. Time enough to ensure that I was as
well-prepared as possible when I chose to espouse a cause. Time enough to become the best-educated advocate
I could be.
Digging
through the StrongTowns website reminds me why I feel
that way. Everywhere I look are blog
posts and articles that I want to read. The
site is filled with materials, sometimes theoretical musings and sometimes
fact-based analyses, that complement the StrongTowns philosophy about what
makes financially sustainable cities.
So today
I’ll be lazy. Rather than doing my own
thinking, I’ll share five posts that engaged me during my most recent foray
into the StrongTowns website. I was
attracted to the posts for different reasons, some because they mirrored issues
in my own community, some because they asked questions that I’d once asked and
since found answers, and some because the intellectual musings felt insightful
to me.
Here we go.
Michael and
Jennifer Smith write about the water system in their town of Rockford, Illinois. They explain how it will be thirty years before the water pipes
have passed their useful life today have all been replaced, by which time an
even greater number of miles of pipe will need replacement. It’s a story that can be told about most U.S.
cities, including my town, but hearing a familiar story told about a town 2,000
miles away creates a sense of community with those who argue for the
StrongTowns thinking.
Chuck Marohn
of StrongTowns, using Mankato in his home state of Minnesota as an example, highlights the fallacies that often underlie
transportation planning decisions. Those
in my town may note similarities to the on-going discussion about the Rainier Connector.
Tony Dutzik
makes the same point on a grander scale, noting that for all the funding now flowing
toward transit, the great preponderance of funding still goes to freeway projects. He notes the somewhere Robert Moses is smiling, an image guaranteed
to raise hackles on many, including me.
Daniel Day
from San Antonio asks why buses often stop on the street rather that at the
entrances to malls. It was a question
that once puzzled me until a grizzled transit vet explained the facts of transit
life. I shared my acquired wisdom as a
comment to the post.
Lastly, I
return again to Marohn for his musings on the nature of change, musings
that include defending the role of cancer as an occasional unfortunate
byproduct of essential change and quoting Charles Darwin on the process by
which new ways of thinking are slowly accepted.
They’re the kind of musings that
I sometimes, perhaps self-indulgently, offer in this blog, so I enjoyed reading
as Marohn wandered down a similar path.
Although the
posts collectively provide insightful information in considering the future of
cities, they also show a community of aligned souls, willing to devote time and
effort to the cause of a better future. Both
facets are inspiring.
In my next
post, I’ll recall a criticism of StrongTowns that was made to me a couple of
years back and to which I never responded adequately. Perhaps being a couple of years wiser, I’ll take
another run at refuting.
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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