A Lesson to be Careful When Name Calling

Today I’m going to do something stupid.  Some readers may already be asking how to tell the difference.  I won’t respond to that question.  But today’s post will be foolhardy in a way that I’ve rarely, if ever, been before.  Today, I’ll offer an urbanist insight into the rhetoric of the current presidential campaign.

Long-time readers will know that I’m not a fan of labels, especially in the political arena.  If someone wants to call me an urbanist, a baseball fan, a civil engineer, or an active member of my community, I’m generally fine with those.  They’re objectively true, or nearly so.

But I’ll bristle when someone calls me a progressive.  Not only is that label frequently intended as a pejorative, but it’s often perceived as incorporating a number of views only some of which do I ascribe.  I may often make common cause with folks who are willing to call themselves progressives, but it’s not a label I accept for myself.  Plus, it’s a term that tends to drift over time, making labeling even more awkward.

With that preamble, you can probably guess how I respond to the frequent use of “socialist” in the current campaign.  If a candidate wishes to put that label on himself, that’s his right.  But problems quickly crop up as the term is applied to other candidates and as opponents make assumptions about the nature of the candidate’s self-defined socialism.

To begin, there were times in the past when people were apoplectic over the “socialist” concepts of Social Security and Medicare, threatening to lie down in the streets before allowing those ideas to take root in American soil.  While I’d agree that the implementation and administration of Social Security and Medicare could often be better, I think that most would agree that both have made American life safer and more financially secure.

Thus, anyone who intends to use “socialist” as an insult must first come to grips with the reality that ideas once called socialist have generally worked out well.

But even more important, at least to me, is the frequent linking of socialism with the impugning term of “wealth redistribution”, a scarcely veiled suggestion that socialism is mostly about taking money from folks who have earned it and giving it to those who have sat on their couches.

There is a fundamental inconsistency in the lives of many who espouse that argument.

I won’t argue that everyone who advocates against “wealth redistribution” fits into this box, but I think we can agree that a fair number are living in single-family homes in sprawling subdivisions while relying almost exclusively on private cars for daily transportation. 

The problem is that people who live that life are relying on a huge redistribution of wealth to sustain their lifestyles.  Whether asking for outside assistance to repair their streets or leaving unpaid infrastructure maintenance and climate damage bills for future generations to cover, they’re not covering their own costs and are instead implicitly demanding that others cover the costs.

Ironic, isn’t it?  Some of the folks responsible for defaming candidates as “socialists in favor of wealth redistribution” may be the beneficiaries of what could be one of the great wealth redistributions in history.

And those are the reason that I have a problem with the throwing around of terms like socialist.  Not only are the terms usually fuzzy and evolving, but too many folks haven’t thought through the implications of their imprecations.

I don’t call myself a socialist.  But there are a number of positions frequently described as socialist which I endorse.  And whether a candidate chooses to call himself a socialist has absolutely no effect on my voting decision.  Before I cast my ballot, I look to character, grasp of issues, and policy directions, not shallow labels.

Meanwhile, I’m consistent proponent of urbanism and of properly allocating the costs of living, whether home location or transportation mode, so wealth redistribution is reduced.

Having now sullied myself with presidential politics, I’ll wade even further into the muck the next time I write.  I’ll note how the 2016 campaign has been turned into the politics of anger, a game which many urbanists, ever if they have a right to be angry, are constitutionally ill-equipped to play.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

A Day of Leftovers

Over the past couple of months, I’ve established a practice of including “Follow-Ups and Schedule Notes” into my midweek posts.  On the follow-ups, good commentary by others always seems to appear on my desk shortly after I thought I’d finished covering a subject.  And I feel obligated to share.

 My midweek additions will definitely continue.  And right now I seem to have a superfluity of follow-up material.  It seems fitting to share this cornucopia of links and tweets on a day when many of us remain in a turkey coma.

I’ve previous quoted Vancouver urbanism consultant Brent Toderian on other subjects, including the complexity of cities and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.  This time, he weighs in with a tweet about bicycling.  “In Copenhagen, people cycle because it’s convenient, not because it's green, healthy, or cheap.”

What a vision!  Rather than arguing that more people should be on bicycles, just make it the most convenient option and let people make their own decisions.  We’re a long ways from achieving that vision, but it’s an inspirational destination to target.

Also on bicycling, the tumult in Toronto over the removal of the Jarvis bicycle lane continues.  As the scraping of the painted bicycle lane markings commenced, local bicycle advocates took to sitting in the street to obstruct the city operation.  There are more photos here.  At least one protester was arrested. 

To further muddy the waters, the City of Toronto began to install parking meters on what was supposed to be a fifth lane for car travel, resulting in this humorous piece by SpacingToronto.

Still on bicycling, Sarah Goodyear of Atlantic Cities writes about a new book on how to help your friends become more comfortable with bicycling.  To note the extent of hurdles to be overcome, New York City resident Goodyear writes about how she offered the use of a bicycle to her friends in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when bicycling was the only way around town for many.  No friends accepted her offer.

Also on bicycling, many new apartment buildings in Denver are including bicycle repair rooms.  And the amenities aren’t limited to benches and tools.  Also offered are energy bars and bicycling maps.  One project is even offering a free bicycle to anyone who signs a one-year lease.

Here in the North Bay, a rash of road rage incidents directed against bicyclists, including an almost incomprehensible incident of an elderly driver chasing a bicyclist onto a golf course before finally striking him, has prompted the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors to consider stronger ordinances to protect bicyclists.  Coverage is provided by both the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat and the Petaluma Patch.

Meanwhile, Sebastopol began their own process to adopt an ordinance protecting all “vulnerable road users”, including bicyclists, pedestrians, and  joggers.

Finishing with bicycles, you may enjoy this newest entry from New Zealand in the weird bicycle category.  I absolutely appreciate the creativity, but the Yike Bike just seems to offers too little protection to the bicyclist in real traffic situations.  Of course, I once thought the same about driving Smart Cars at freeway speeds.  I’ve now grown accustomed to seeing them in the next lane.

Another thing the electric Yike Bike does is further blur the line between bicycles and motorcycles.  The day is coming when we’ll need a complete update to how we allocate our roadways.  And it’s likely that cars will lose some of their current prerogatives.

Changing subjects, on several occasions I wrote about the dearth of comments about cities and urbanism during the presidential campaign.  It now seems that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan wanted to speak in urban cores.  His intended topic was poverty.  I think that urbanism would have been a better subject.  But the question was moot because the Romney campaign overruled Ryan’s request.

It’s uncertain that Ryan’s message would have found resonance in the urban centers, but it’s a shame that he wasn’t given a chance to try.  Especially because it might have forced the Obama campaign to respond, pushing urbanism closer to the spotlight.

I’ll close with Venice.  I spent two weeks there in 2007 and fervently hope to return.  Even setting aside its history, beauty, and uniqueness, it is absolutely the most walkable city in the world.  Not because it’s easy to walk there, but because there are few alternatives.

With that said, it’s hard to look at the photos of Venice during the recent extreme “acqua alta”.  During my stay there, I saw a small acqua alta late in my visit, around which a wedding couple had to stage their picture taking in the photo above.  But it was nowhere near as high as the recent event.

I mention this not because my affection for Venice, although I do someday intend to recount my Venetian stay in this blog, but because of the debate over the cause of the increasingly high acqua altas.  There is little doubt that Venice is subsiding.  Indeed, the entire region around Venice is sinking at about one millimeter per year.  There is also little doubt that higher water levels in the Adriatic are also part of the increased incursion of the sea into Venice.

And yet some argue that as long as one cause, the subsidence, can be identified, then no other cause, such as climate change, is valid.  It’s an absurd argument, one that is contradicted by the most casual observation of many natural, political, and economic phenomena.  Many occurrences in the real world have multiple contributing and often mutually-reinforcing causes.  And yet the idea of a solitary cause is often passed off as logical on the internet.  Just like urbanism, reality is complex.  We must embrace complexity, not pretend it doesn’t exist.

Closing Note: My first blog post was published on the Monday after Thanksgiving 2011.  So, today concludes my first year.  After fifty-two weeks of three posts per week, I still have a long list of topics about which to ruminate, to share, and to listen to your thoughts.  It’s been a great start, but it’s only been a start.  There are many more miles to cover before I sleep.

It sometimes seems as if progress on urbanism in the U.S. is a Sisyphean task.  But inspired by the readership of this blog that has been slowly but steadily increasing, I intend to keep pushing on the boulder.  Besides, in the words of anthropologist Margaret Meade, “Can a small group of people make a difference?  It's the only thing that ever has.”

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)