In my last post, I wrote about “The Trouble with
City Planning” by Kristina Ford.
Although I suspected that the message of the book had been muddied
through the editorial and publishing steps, I appreciated much of what Ford
wrote, finding it a good common-sense explanation of why city planning often stumbles.
However, I
took issue with one position she espoused.
The difference is probably more a matter of degree than absolutes, but
meaningful regardless. A story from my
long-ago youth will illustrate.
I don’t
recall having a long-standing dream to make music before the fourth grade, but when
my classmates and I were offered an opportunity to take up a musical instrument
early during that school year, I and many others quickly signed up. Perhaps I thought that blowing sweet music on
a trumpet would prove irresistible to the fourth grade babes. (Kathy Fitzpatrick, where have you gone?)
But the school district in which I attended
fourth grade didn’t hand out instruments or instruction to anyone. They insisted on spending resources only on
those who showed a degree of musical aptitude.
So I found
myself a week later soon in a cafeteria of fourth-graders, gathered to have our
musical skills tested. The test began
with a severe looking grey-haired lady playing two scratchy snippets of music on
an aging school district record player. After
the second snippet, she asked “If the first selection was correctly in tune,
was the second selection sharp or flat?”
And
immediately, fifty fourth-graders were looking at each other, wondering what
was meant by sharp and flat. Sensing our
puzzlement, the lady gave a pursed lips lesson, explaining that sharp meant too
high in pitch and flat meant too low.
Even though
the explanation didn’t provide much assistance, the test nonetheless continued
with seemingly innumerable questions about sharp versus flat, which quickly
degraded into random guesses. Sharp-sharp-flat-flat-flat-sharp-sharp
seemed equally possible as any other pattern of answers.
As I recall,
the test eventually moved onto questions such as distinguishing trumpets from
violins from clarinet, but it was too late for most of us. Our dreams of wooing female classmates with
sweet music were gone and we were down to our athletic prowess and/or clever
wit as attraction devices, neither of which seemed promising. (This was a two years pre-Beatles, so the thought
of gathering in a garage with guitars was still on the far side of the horizon.)
The problem,
of course, was that none of us had been exposed to the type of questions being
asked. I can’t speak for my fellow
classmates, but I came from a household where music was a regular part of
life. But I never once hearing anything
like “Bing Crosby was a little flat on that version of ‘White Christmas’” or
“The French horn was sharp in the Brahms’ Concerto.” I’d never been introduced to the skills needed
to succeed on the test and therefore failed badly.
I know that
there is much current opposition to “teaching to the test”. I concur with the concern, but the musical
aptitude test was the complete reverse and it was an even worse approach.
And that’s
the problem I have with author Ford. She
puts great weight on citizen input into the land planning process, effectively
granting overall control to the citizenry, with the principal function of planning
staff being to write down and to administer the rules needed to implement the
citizens’ vision.
And while I agree
that input from the citizenry is essential, often providing insights about the
community that aren’t visible from the planning office, that input has to be
informed. Ford seems to think that a
good public meeting at which well-formed presentations are made is
sufficient. I believe that understanding
good land use requires far more background.
Furthermore,
there is a fundamental difference between fourth graders and adults in how they
respond to situations in which their information is inadequate to the task. Fourth graders look perplexed and get quiet. Adults become more convinced of the rightness
of their limited grasp and become more bellicose. And that’s not helpful to good land use
planning.
To be
honest, I don’t know what the right solution is. It’s hard to convince citizens, no matter how
motivated they are to improve their community, to spend the time necessary to
grasp the complexities of land use. Perhaps
our current system, in which citizens provide input based on their limited background
and understanding, leaving the task of using as much or as little of that input
as appropriate to planning staffs and planning commissions, is the best model
possible. If so, we’ll continue to
muddle through. But even if this is the
case, exalting the citizen input isn’t helpful.
Nor am I
trying to put myself on a pedestal for knowing more about land use than many of
my fellow citizens. It’s true that because
of both vocation and avocation, I’ve spent far more time than most in studying
and pondering the conundrums of land-use planning. But, in keeping with the dicta that the soul
of wisdom lays in knowing what you don’t know, I’m still coming to grips with
what I don’t know. Continued study and
thought lays in my future.
Land use is
a messy, complex subject. To a large
extent, Ford acknowledges the messiness and complexity and I recommend her book
for that. But I think she slips a bit on
the value of citizens’ input.
If anyone is
wondering about my still-born musical career, I can provide a coda. A year and a half after the fourth grade testing
debacle, my family moved to a town where aptitude testing wasn’t used. And I certainly wasn’t about to admit to my
earlier, ignoble failure. So I was
issued a trumpet and instruction commenced, beginning a seven-year journey
through the brass section.
By my senior
year of high school, I was playing trombone in one of the best high school jazz
bands in California. It was a truly
talented band, with at least four of its members later playing
professionally. But the trombones were
the weakest section in the band. Only
one trombonist had much skill and I wasn’t that guy.
However, the
band instructor recognized the weakness and stayed away from music that would
have been beyond the capabilities of the weak end of his trombone section. We played in the background, looking good,
while others made great music. The last
time my lips touched a mouthpiece was a few weeks before high school graduation. I still think about my days of playing the
trombone, but don’t expect to ever return to music making.
Perhaps
that’s because I never became good at tuning my instruments, with sharp and
flat continuing to bedevil me. Whether I
truly lacked a good ear or whether my fourth grade failure had left a mental
block, I don’t know.
In my next
post, I’ll acknowledge the beginning of fall with some thoughts about
post-summer, pre-holiday reading lists.
Chuck Marohn of StrongTowns recently offered his reading list ideas,
which I found striking for someone of his background and interests.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
