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This
is the first of two columns that focus on the
critical issue of vocabulary. A comprehensive
arsenal of words and phrases is essential to
comprehend and create functional patterns and
densities of land use. (See End
Note One.) The column opens with a tool that
citizens can employ to demonstrate the
importance of precise terminology when
discussing human settlement patterns. The need
for a robust vocabulary is reinforced with a
smorgasbord of vocabulary- and
terminology-related issues impacting functional
and dysfunctional settlement patterns in this
column and in the next column “Deconstructing
the Tower of Babel.” (See End
Note Two.) A
Two-Page Puzzle To
recognize, analyze and reduce the negative
impact of dysfunctional human settlement
patterns, citizens must understand the
importance of employing a clear, comprehensive
vocabulary. This section outlines a way to
demonstrate the importance of using precise
words. The technique employed here is a first
step on the path away from the Tower of Babel. SYNERGY/Planning,
Inc. benefits from a network of friends and
colleagues across the United States and Europe
who forward documents and links to materials,
data and ideas which they believe will be of
interest. Many of these resources support
the principles and theses set forth in The
Shape of the Future. Some appear to
challenge this work. All are welcome. In
this context S/PI recently received a copy of a
two- page column from the October 2005 issue of Governing
magazine. (See End
Note Three). Governing, as one might
guess from the title, is published for
governance practitioners. The magazine is often
the source of clear thinking on governance
practice as it impacts human settlement
patterns. (See End
Note Four.) Occasionally,
Governing is the source of flawed ideas
and not-yet-discarded conventional wisdom. The
October “Assessments” column by Alan
Ehrenhalt, subtitled “A New View of Sprawl,”
falls in the later category. The column is a
review and commentary inspired by Robert
Bruegmann’s book "Sprawl: A Compact
History." (That is an oxymoronish
subtitle if ever one existed.) The
column was sent to us because of its repeated
and varied use of the word “sprawl.” S/PI
never uses that word without quotation marks and
disclaimers because, as documented in Appendix
Two of "The Shape of the Future –
Core Confusing Words," and as will be
further explored below, “sprawl” generates
profound confusion, regardless of how it is
used. The
Governing column is confused and
confusing. In an attempt to figure out the
anatomy of the confusion, we highlighted in yellow the key statements that can
be proven to be true. True statements are
those that can be shown to reflect facts as
determined by S/PI research and experience.
Next, we highlighted in orange the statements that are patently false. It
turned out there were about as many orange
highlights as yellow ones. There were some
sentences that had both yellow and orange
segments. In addition, about the same number of
true and false statements originated with the
columnist Ehrenhalt as with Bruegmann, the
author he was reviewing. In other words, both
the columnist and the author make some good
points and some bad ones. The orange highlights
are “bad” not because they are offensive,
they are bad because they do not reflect
reality.
How
could this happen in a respected publication
like Governing? More important, how can
citizens and the governance practitioners who
work for them be expected to sort out the
truth and take intelligent action when such
material is printed on a regular basis not
just in Governing but in mainstream
media in general?
Then
we got an idea: With a red pen we circled all
the places that the word “sprawl” is used.
Next we substituted the phrase “dysfunctional
human settlement pattern” for the word
“sprawl.” The result of this simple
substitution was startling. Instantly, the real
intent of the statements was clear and it was
obvious why some were correct and some were
incorrect. Profound
Confusion Created by "Sprawl" Why
were the statements so much more clear after a
simple, straightforward substitution? Some
settlement patterns called “sprawl” in the
column are dysfunctional and some patterns
referred to as “sprawl” are not
dysfunctional. Dysfunctional patterns can be
determined by objective criteria. Objective
economic, social and physical measures such as
cost per unit of service delivered, per capita
crime rates, vehicle trip generation per
dwelling, and many others are clear, science-based
measures of dysfunction.
Those
patterns are deemed by some to be “sprawl”
and not to be “sprawl” by others are the
basis for conflicts between those who
“like” and those who do not “like”
sprawl.
In
many cases what is lumped together as
“sprawl” is a shallow, aesthetic
misconception. If a land use is not
dysfunctional, there is no fact-based reason to
hold this distribution of land uses up for
ridicule. In other cases land uses that reflect
bad settlement pattern characteristics escape
notice because they are co-mixed with
uses that are unfairly attacked or excused as
legitimate results of individual preference or
market dynamics. Finally, some very
dysfunctional distributions of land uses are
never labeled as “sprawl.”
Sometimes what is
termed “sprawl” is a perfectly good use in
wrong location. At other times what is termed
“sprawl” is a sound land use in a functional
location but with a shoddy design.
A
specific land use can be seen as desirable from
one perspective -- especially for those for whom
the specific land use generates revenue -- and
bad from another. Some land uses are termed
“sprawl” by those who claim to support
“sprawl” are put up as a strawperson just to
discount all judgments of inappropriate land
uses. In fact, “sprawl” is most
strenuously “defended” by those who seek to
discredit any control over the location of land
uses. Those who use “sprawl” as a wedge issue to
support an ideological position discount the
need for a balance between private rights and
public responsibilities. More on this later.
Lumping
all the uses one does not like together and
calling them “sprawl” profoundly confuses
the issues related to functional and
dysfunctional settlement patterns.
As
readers of this column know, there is a simple,
threshold test of a dysfunctional land use: If
the user pays the full and equitable cost, the
land use is not dysfunctional per se. That does
not, however, prove that a specific land use is
not a cause of dysfunction at the dooryard,
cluster, neighborhood, or even village scale.
This is because of the collective interactions
of the land uses within each of the components of human
settlement patterns. To
sort out the critical question of functional
location within all components (scales) of
settlement, one must consider the issue of
"balance." Balanced Communities cannot have
villages with badly unbalanced neighborhoods.
Balanced neighborhoods cannot have clusters with
conflicting land uses. The test of balance must
be applied up and down the scales of components.
See “Balanced
Communities,” August, 23, 2005. The
necessity of balance means that it is not just a
question of each land user paying his fair share
but also each land use contributing to an
appropriate balance and distribution of land
uses in each dooryard, cluster, neighborhood and
village to create Balanced Communities. Even in
this larger context, paying the fair cost of
location decisions is critically important
because a big part of that cost can be the price
of overcoming the negative impact within the
dooryard, cluster, neighborhood or village. Putting
a noisy machine shop underground or dressing up
an electrical substation like a row of shops
with offices and apartments above and shielding
the surrounding land uses from radiation are
examples of such costs. So is the total cost of
running an expressway through an existing
neighborhood, village or community as noted in
“Interstate
Crime,” Feb. 28, 2005. Until
the advent of rapid urbanization driven by the
Industrial Revolution, the component balance and
the allocation of cost was the natural result of
deliberate agglomeration of urban fabric within
an overall plan established by the power (chief,
prince, king, emperor, priest, guild, citizen
council) that granted the privilege of creating
urban fabric. (See Alexander, Christopher,
"The
Timeless Way of Building"; Oxford University
Press; New York; 1979.) The
traditional system of urban agglomeration worked
quite well when only one or two percent of the
population was urban and the evolution of urban
fabric was done by hand and with simple
machines. This process worked well as judged by
the market value and functionality of
residential and non-residential structures at
the unit, dooryard, cluster, neighborhood,
village and community scales in urban
agglomeration from Stockholm to Pienza and from
Savannah to San Francisco. In fact it worked
well in every urban place on the globe where
attractiveness and function can be measured by
market value. The
traditional system began to deconstruct with
accelerating urbanization after 1800 in Western
Europe and after 1865 in the United States. The
dysfunction has grown exponentially since 1945.
Unfortunately, this breakdown is collectively
and misleadingly known as “sprawl.” In
the United States we have yet to even start
devising a process to ensure balanced
agglomeration of urban fabric to serve a
population that is now almost completely urban
in its economic and social orientation. The
over-conversion of land to scattered urban land
uses threatens the physical viability of the
urban systems and the ecological base for
non-urban activity. A crisis is at hand due to
the end of cheap energy to fuel vehicles and the
realization that few want to take the time to go
from where they are to where they need or want
to be when there is a dysfunctional distribution
of origins and destinations of travel. The
Threshold Vocabulary Test Tools It
was clear from the empirical evaluation of the Governing
column that an aware citizen could better
understand why yellow statements were true and
recognize why the orange statements were either
false, exaggerations, over-generalizations
or statements inconsistent with reality. What is
more, the authors (of both the book and the
column), in all likelihood, would not have made
the incorrect statements had they used a phrase
that expressed their meaning with clarity. So
here is the self-help tool: Go through an item
like the Governing column that repeatedly
uses the term “sprawl” and substitute
"dysfunctional human settlement
pattern" every time the word “sprawl”
appears. You will find the inconsistencies jump
off the page and you will understand why using
precise terminology is critical to any useful
discussion of human settlement patterns. A
reader might substitute phrases other than
“dysfunctional human settlement pattern" for
“sprawl” so long as the phrase correctly
identifies what they mean and so long as the
parameters can be empirically tested rather than
being just another catchall like “sprawl”
that has many meanings. The
central thesis of "The Shape of the Future"
is that human settlement patterns have
controlling impact on the economic, social and
physical well-being of individuals, families,
communities, New Urban Regions and
nation-states. For this reason the importance of
vocabulary in determining functional and
dysfunctional human settlement patterns is
obvious. (See End
Note Five.) The
most important lesson from this test: Never use
the word "sprawl" if you want to be
understood concerning human settlement pattern
function and dysfunction. But there is much more
to be considered about the impact of this word
and of other words considered in our next
column. "Sprawl"
- the Most Confusing Word Used in Discussions of
Human Settlement Patterns Work
on this column (and the one that follows)
confirms that the use of “sprawl” in
any context is the most confusing word applied
to human settlement patterns. The reason that
“sprawl” is so destructive is that any use
of the word “sprawl” energizes one of many
different neural linguistic frameworks. (See End
Note Six.) Further
exacerbating the problem is that “sprawl” is
used as a handy but confusing catchall in
arguments, discussion and research concerning
human settlement patterns and mobility.
“Sprawl” is intentionally misused by some in
these and related arguments, discussions and
attempts at political spin. In
the sections of "The Shape of the Future" cited
in End Note One there is extensive discussion of
the misuse of the word “sprawl.” Over the
past five years we have filled folders with
examples of inappropriate uses of “sprawl”
and the other eight Core Confusing Words
addressed in Appendix Two. (See End
Note Seven.) Using
Google and other search technologies one can be
quickly overwhelmed with citations to
“sprawl.” Many, like those in the Governing
column, are inappropriate. The same is true of
the text of books with “sprawl” in the
title. There are half-dozen or so in the S/PI
library. Think how much more effective Douglas
E. Morris’s book "It’s A Sprawl
World After All" would be if it did not
misuse the word. (For a brief summary of some
social issues related human settlement pattern
and the contribution of "It’s A Sprawl
World After All," see “Reality
Based Regionalism – Part Two,” Oct. 17,
2005.) In the case of Morris’s book, in the
Acknowledgments the author thanks 60
people who participated in a focus group to help
name the book – a case of the blind leading
the blind if there ever was one. Some
books and articles on the topic note that
“sprawl” is really in the eye of the
beholder but then go on to use the word as if it
has a specific meaning. Stating that
“sprawl” is in the eye of the beholder (as
the Governing column does) is not enough
to inoculate the writing against spreading mass
confusion. Assuming that everyone should know
and agree on what “sprawl” is – as James
Howard Kunstler and others do – only confuses
the problem. Scholarly
efforts to “define,” categorize or quantify
“sprawl” have been of little help. There are
a number of such studies generated in, by and
about states that have attempted to make
“smart growth” a front hook issue – New
Jersey, Maryland and, of course, Oregon all have
inspired academic and scholarly efforts focused
on “sprawl.” While this work generates
interesting data and perspectives they exhibit
some or all of the following shortcomings:
-
There
is no desirable, functional or sustainable
model of settlement pattern (e.g. the
Balanced Community and its components) which
is set up as a model, goal or prototype to
establish and test the parameters of various
components or types of “sprawl.” For
this reason, the “results” are open-
ended continua with no guidelines to
identify desirable or undesirable settlement
patterns.
-
Finally,
and most importantly, once the study is
done, all the forms, types and
characteristics of the different forms or
characteristics of “sprawl” that are
separated out for examination are lumped
back together for public consumption in the
general catch-all category of “sprawl.”
Perhaps
the most important problem with uses of the word
“sprawl” is to put up a smokescreen that
obscures the important fundamental realities
concerning human settlement patterns. For the
Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region and the
National Capital Subregion an example of these
parameters are summarized in the Backgrounder
“Five
Critical Realities That Shape the Future,”
Dec. 15, 2003.
Tracking
"Sprawl" from Confusion to Obfuscation
As
if using the word “sprawl” does not cause
enough confusion, not calling some settlement
patterns “sprawl” can generate even more
profound confusion. The conventional use of
“sprawl” obscures the fact that some forms
of development are dysfunctional but are not
identified as such. A good example of this is
that use and non-use of “sprawl” masks the
distinction between two important multipliers of
dysfunctional human settlement patterns
impacting erosion of the Countryside.
These two exponents are:
Sorting
out these two exponents requires some effort.
Let us start with the fact that almost everyone
who uses the word “sprawl” considers
“strip development” to be the best example.
“Strip development” – retail and service
establishments strung out along major roadways
– is the most common variant of
“sprawl.” Jim Bacon provides a vivid profile
of navigation in this settlement pattern in “Lost
in Suburbia,” Oct. 17, 2005.
The
best path to understanding the first exponent is
to recognize that the inevitable cumulative
impact of scattered urban dwellings is
single-function, roadway-oriented commercial
buildings surrounded by surface parking lots.
“Strip development” is composed of gas
stations for the cars, fast food franchises for
the drivers, oversized signage which attempts to
identify individual destinations in the chaos,
scattered shopping “centers” and big box
centers with vast parking lots. This
distribution of land uses is the result of what
Jim Bacon calls the “autocentric society”
and the impact is documented in his recent
navigational adventures on Broad Street in
Henrico County noted above.
Some
do not yet understand that the scattered
dooryard-, cluster-, and neighborhood-scale
urban dwellings (aka, scattered
“subdivisions” both small and large) are a
cause of the common “strip development”
variant of “sprawl.” A growing number
identify one of the impacts of scattered
dysfunctional human settlement pattern
components – the rising cost of location
variable service costs, e.g. transport, safety
and security, education, etc. My column “Scatteration”
(Sept. 22, 2003), articulates why the most
common settlement pattern that is called
“sprawl” is the inevitable result of
scattered, auto-dependent urban housing and to
some extent scattered urban employment and
services.
While a growing number
recognize the first exponent of settlement
pattern dysfunction, there is the second
exponent that is not called “sprawl” and is
not thought of a driver of those forms of
development widely recognized as
“sprawl.” This exponent of settlement
pattern dysfunction is caused by division and
re-division of large parcels of land to
accommodate large (10-, 20-, 50- or 100-acre) lots
for low-density urban houses. This
activity is not yet recognized as being an even
greater threat to the Countryside than the
scattered “subdivisions.”
The mathematics are simple: Creating 50 acres
lots devours the Countryside 100 times faster
than a similar number of houses in a
“subdivision” with half-acre lots.
Large urban lots also mean if one takes the same
number of trips to reach the same number of
origins and destinations each trip will to
involve at least 10 times the vehicle miles
traveled as compared to half-acre lots within
components of Balanced Communities. As
will be documented in "The Shape of Warrenton-Fauquier’s
Future," over the past few years the average lot
size for urban residences is over six acres.
That is more than 20 times the average for a single-family detached unit in a minimum density
Balanced Community.
Large
well-to-do households occupying these houses
generate more trips per dwelling unit and the
scattered locations are likely to be insulated
from job and service concentrations by areas of
somewhat higher density subdivisions so that the
total miles per household may exceed by an order
of magnitude the length/energy consumption/air and water pollution per capita of what is
generally considered “sprawl.”
The 10- to 100-acre urban lot exponent of
dysfunction is almost never called “sprawl.”
Why are widely scattered dwellings not
considered “sprawl?” Because they are not
mobile homes, they are “nice” (often very
large) detached houses occupied by citizens who
are well to do. Owners often send their
children to private schools or are empty nesters
(no public school costs), have healthy
incomes derived from jobs/investments near the
core of the region, they spend some of their
money in local establishments, pay significant
property taxes and occasionally donate to
community causes. Some of the new urban
dwellers are willing to accept
“conservation” easements on their large lots
in exchange for tax breaks.
The
bottom line is that some human settlement
patterns are labeled “sprawl” that are not
dysfunctional, and some examples of dysfunctional
settlement patterns are not tagged as “sprawl.”
Beyond
Obfuscation, onto Obliviousness
There is an additional sphere of confusion about
settlement patterns that is generated by use of
the term “sprawl,” even when the word does
not appear in the text or conversation. There are three levels of obliviousness:
-
Those who misunderstand human settlement
patterns due to the confusion caused by use or
non-use of the word “sprawl.”
-
Those who intentionally distort settlement
pattern issues by taking advantage of the
confusion caused by the use or non-use of the
work “sprawl.”
-
Those who are trying to help sort out settlement
patterns issues – such as transport system
congestion or the lack of affordable and
accessible housing – but are not successful
because in avoiding the use of the word
“sprawl” but by failing to provide a
substitute, they do not provide any reference to the
physical distribution of land uses (aka, human
settlement pattern).
These
levels of confusion are examined in the
following three sections.
The
Solution Is Real Simple, You Dolt
The positions of those who misunderstand human
settlement patterns due to the confusion caused
by use (or non-use) of the word “sprawl” is
sometimes entertaining but tragically flawed.
This level of confusion is clearly illustrated
by Barnie Day’s Bacons Rebellion column
“Just Say ‘No,"
Nov. 14, 2005. Barnie, and many others,
confuse efforts to “stop development in the
wrong places” with efforts to stop “no
growth anywhere.”
NIMBYism
(Not In My BackYard) is a clear threat to
rational discussion of settlement pattern
issues. It is clear that some take
NIMBYism to the extreme and are called BANANAs
(Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone). NIMBYism is most powerful when it is masked by
arguments about property values, environmental
impact and change in “neighborhood
character.” True BANANAs are rare and
have little impact in most discussions
settlement pattern or “development” issues.
Most NIMBYism – and the errors committed by
those bashing of NIMBYism – is rooted in
Geographic Illiteracy. This is due in
large part to calling development in the wrong
location “sprawl.” See the
Backgrounder “Geographic Illiteracy,”
April 11, 2005.
Confusion
about functional human settlement patterns
caused by the use of the work “sprawl”
carries over to discussions even if the word
“sprawl” in never used. That is just
what happens in the Barnie Day column.
Here is a quick counter point to Barnie’s
attack on those who, from his perspective, do
not know one end of a horse from the other:
Those who understand the economic, social and
physical forces and processes resulting in the
agglomeration of human settlement patterns know
there is that little municipal jurisdictions can
do to turn on or off the growth (or loss) of
jobs or population in a New Urban Region or an
Urban Support Region. The forces
that attract or repel jobs and people are mainly
regional forces in the context of nation-state
and global currents. Individually,
municipalities have little power to impact these
regional drivers of “growth.” A good
example is the development pressures in Loudoun
County which are driven by ballooning federal
spending on post-Sept. 11, 2005, security, the Iraq
war and an expanding federal bureaucracy.
All that saying “no” does is shift the
location of the demand for housing and services
to the fringes of the region. The major
focus of employment uses take up a very small
percentage of the region’s land area.
Further, jobs are located in the most efficient
place from the perspective of those creating the
jobs. (The vast majority of those places
are at or near the core of the region. See
“Where the Jobs Are,” May
24, 2004, and the columns that have cited this material.)
Municipal and state policies and incentives can
change some location decisions but they are
minor – and often counterproductive from the
perspective of creating Balanced Communities.
The fringe development that generates
the headlines and heat consists mainly of residential
development, with houses located far from the
jobs. In these locations –- which are well
beyond the logical location of the Clear
Edge -– the municipal jurisdictions lack the
institutional capacity to understand if they
could or why they should say “no.”
In this context is it easy to see why
understanding the Backgrounder “Five Critical
Realities That Shape the Future,” Dec. 15,
2003, that deals with the amount of
land and the desirable location for new
development in the Region and Subregion is so
important.
Barnie Day’s column is
fun to read and fires up some who do not
understand how badly he misconstrues regional
reality. If you think such musings and
humor have little impact then think again.
It turns out that the same column also appeared
in the Fauquier Citizen on Nov. 10, titled
“Growth Control Freaks Can’t Have It Both
Ways.” End Note Nine presents most of
two e-mails from the proprietor of a gourmet
deli and catering service in Warrenton-Fauquier.
Her e-mails are sent to 3,000 customers and
clients five mornings a week.
Barnie’s column generated a response in the
Fauquier Citizen on Nov. 17. In a
follow-up column an entrepreneur, civic activist
and active member of George Fitch’s primary
campaign took exception to everything Barnie
said. The column titled “Advocates for
growth can’t have it both ways” Yakir
Lubowsky gives as good as Barnie dished out
using the same down-home approach but reversing
ends of the horse. (This op-ed also
appeared as an op-ed
in Bacon's Rebellion.) Unfortunately Yak is
constrained to argue within the parameters that
failure of a create a comprehensive vocabulary
and an overarching conceptual framework inflicts
on discussions of human settlement
patterns.
Follow
Us to Freedom from Controls and other Eternal
Rewards
The second level of
obfuscation is occupied by those who
intentionally obfuscate settlement pattern
issues by taking advantage of the confusion
caused by the use or non-use of the word
“sprawl” or the failure to use a substitute
for "sprawl."
These folks are not
just lost in space. They are not just
victims of Geographic Illiteracy. They
intentionally use mass confusion over human
settlement pattern issues to advance a political
agenda. They intentionally confuse
property rights with the property value
generated by dysfunctional settlement pattern.
They jump on issues like the New London eminent
domain case to further a specific view of the
world that is contrary to the best interests of
the majority of citizens. (See "Land
Speculators 2, Citizens 0,” March 14, 2005 and “The Myths That Blind Us,” 20
October 2003," for background on these
and related issues.)
This is not just
conservative think-tank propaganda. The authors must know there is no basis for the
rants they write, cite and disseminate.
They use legitimate concerns as wedges to
obfuscate discussions of functional human
settlement pattern and Balanced Communities.
This form of obfuscation is noted here primarily
to distinguish it from the next level – those
who are trying to make the world a better place
but, due to the confusion generated by the use
of “sprawl” produce fog. (See End Note
Ten.)
Let
Me Explain This To You
The third level is
reserved for those well-intended authors,
scholars and professionals who are trying to
help sort out settlement patterns issues –
such as transport system congestion and the lack
of affordable and accessible housing – but do
not understand what they are saying.
A good place to start is with two posts to
“The Road To Ruin” Blog. On Nov. 1 Bob Burke provided a brief review of Rob
Atkinson’s presentation to the Fall 2005
Virginia Transportation Conference titled “The
Conspiracy of Anti-Mobility Activists.” In Atkinson’s talk titled “The
Politics of Gridlock” one would expect (and
find) a little of the “bash the dullards”
tone of Barnie Day but Atkinson goes beyond this
to list seven specific steps he calls the
“Third Way.” Both Tony Blair and I
support the Third Way idea 100 percent, if it is
indeed a “third way.” As VP of the
“Progressive Policy Institute” one would
hope Atkinson’s advice would be
“progressive” e.g. toward a better world and
not regressive.
It is worth listing
Atkinson’s seven-step program as articulated
by Burke (in italics) with a few notes (in
bold).
One can see how the discussion of
settlement patterns without a comprehensive
conceptual framework of settlement components
and without a robust vocabulary, especially one
distorted by use of “sprawl” – even if the
word never appears in the discussion – makes
it difficult to consider these points to be a
true “third way.”
Respect the
desire of Americans to live where they want
(as long as everyone pays their fair share of the
location- based costs. NB: “fair”
includes an equitable adjustment for those at
the bottom of the economic food chain and it
surely excludes subsidy for those at the top of
the food chain that unfortunately is now the policy and
practice).
Reject today’s
fashionable defeatism about congestion (as
long
as “defeatism” does not include physical
impossibilities like “building our way out of
congestion” and “defeatism” does not
condemn the use of a “strategic stalemate”
until there is an agreement to balance land use
trip generation with transportation system
capacity).
Speed development and
deployment of new transportation technologies (as
long as the technologies work to balance
system capacity with travel demand, not just
marginally improve corridor or link capacity
which in turn encourages more corridor demand).
Tackle NIMBYism head on
(as
noted above NIMBYism is an important reason to
wipe out Geographic Illiteracy).
Create regional transportation councils
(as long
as they are regional transportation and land use
agencies and not just transportation
“councils”). See “Reality Based
Regionalism Part Three – What Regional
Authority?,” Oct. 17, 2005.
Reduce public subsidies and rely more on user
fees and public-private partnerships (right on,
as long as the public-private partnerships serve
public objectives (-- e.g. mobility and access in functional
settlement patterns -- as well as private profit
objectives).
Restructure the
relationship between the federal government and
the states (as long as what is really meant is
to structure a relationship between federal,
state and municipal agencies and functional
regional entities).
It is clear that
there is some crafting to be done before these
ideas amount to a “third way.” A second example
of this level of obfuscation can be found by
checking out Jim Bacon’s Nov. 10, post to
“The Road to Ruin” titled “At last A
Governor Who Will Look At land Use.
The entire post is
worth noting but is cited here because a
commentator thoughtfully attached the Virginia
Commission on Population, Growth and
Development’s “Planning Goals.”
Having had something to do with these goals,
directly and indirectly, I am chagrined to note
that these ten “goals” are largely useless
because they do not have any reference to
specific, functional, dysfunctional – or any
other form of – settlement pattern.
While the message got across about the negative
impact of mentioning “sprawl,” there is no
substitute for the word. This means two
things:
-
There is no way to
indicate how important human
settlement pattern is to the economic, social
and physical well-being of the
Commonwealth.
-
There is no way to quantify or test any of
objectives of these goals.
So,
Where Does that Leave Us?
We have
focused in this column mainly on the word
“sprawl” and introduced a tool to help
identify importance of a more robust vocabulary
In the next column we will examine other
confusing words and outline a path to an over
arching solution to the Lexicon quagmire.
As long as smug professionals, self-serving
professors and pandering politicians can say
that dysfunctional human settlement pattern,
which is clouded by use of “sprawl” and
other confusing words, is just a matter of
"different opinions," and that columns,
news and advertisements using words that
negatively impact citizen understanding of
functional human settlement patterns are fair
game "in the market place of ideas,” and
that there is “no right and wrong" with
respect to settlement patterns, civilization
will continue to slide toward entropy.
Modern governments have outlawed yelling
"Fire!" in a crowded theater. One can
be arrested for selling unproven drugs or
intentionally giving false medical advice or
advice that results in personal injury. Recently,
it has become a crime to joke
about hijacking in an airplane or in an airport.
Such action may impact 200 or 300
individuals.
Talking nonsense about human settlement
patterns may endanger to civilization as we know
it.
To
achieve a sustainable trajectory, society must come to a well considered judgment
on the need for functional human settlement
patterns. To reach that judgment,
citizens must have to have intelligent
discussion using clearly defined terms with
facts based on science not myth.
--
November 28, 2005
End
Notes (1)
The Shape of the Future devotes
considerable space to the importance of
vocabulary. The text documenting the
imperative of a comprehensive vocabulary include
major parts of the Prologue, Chapter 3 and much
of Part III (Chapters 15 through 22) as
well as Appendix One (Lexicon) and Appendix Two
(Core Confusing Words). In spite of this
some readers gloss over the importance of
precise terminology and thereafter consider the
choice of words and phrases in the book to be
needlessly cumbersome. (2)
“Deconstructing the Tower of Babel” is
scheduled to run December 12, 2005, in Bacons
Rebellion. (3)
“Assessments” page 11, October 2005, Governing,
by Alan Ehrenhalt. (4)
For example see the review of “Edge-ucaton:
The Compulsion to Build Schools the Middle of
Nowhere” from the March 2004 cover story in Governing.
This article is a front hook exhibit in “Education
and Human Settlement Pattern,” Jan. 31,
2005. (5)
We no longer teach graduate programs in planning
on a regular basis, so we do not have ready
access to a way to test ideas such as this to
see if the technique indeed has broad
applicability This resource was available
when writing The Shape of the Future. We
would appreciate hearing from readers on the
application of the phrase substitution technique
for the word “sprawl.” (6)
We will examine the phrase “neural linguistic
framework in “Deconstructing the Tower of
Babel” which is scheduled to run 12 December
2005 on Bacons Rebellion. (7)
In alpha order the Core Confusing Words
addressed in Appendix Two are: “city,”
“community,” “exurban,” “local,”
“neighborhood,” “organic,” “rural,”
“sprawl” and “urban.” Some
of these words can be used so long as they are
coupled with a modifier and/or when one meaning
is distinguished from another meaning by
Capitalization as we will demonstrate in the
next column “Deconstructing the Tower of
Babel.” In addition to those uses of
“sprawl” which purport to deal with
settlement patterns, S/PI has collected over 100
examples of inappropriate misuses of
“sprawl” from main stream media. The
most common are conversions from a noun to a
gerund. There are “sprawling” novels
(An American Tragedy), views (as in mountain
vistas), art galleries (In this case a space of
2,500 sq ft max.), auto accidents, clubs and
restaurants (Clyde’s), parties, movies (“The
Hunchback of Notre Dame”), law suits,
battlefields, festivals, meetings, religious
movements (several of those), woods, farmland,
deserts, and even countryside (as in “the
sprawling countryside, not “sprawling across
the Countryside” ). (8)
These first two problems are also characteristic
of almost all “cost of alternative forms of
development” studies. In addition, the
cost of development inquiries addresses only a
few of the 40 location variable costs. (9)
Tuesday, Nov. 14, from jimmies market:
Tuesday will go much better for you if you have
some cream of roasted tomato soup ($2.50/$4.89)
and a chicken salad on pita ($4.75). An oatmeal
raisin cookie (69 cents) is my choice for
dessert.
I'm a little behind on my reading, but
the November 3 (Fauquier) Democrat (Susan is
really behind and a bit confused, it was
actually the Nov. 10 Fauquier Citizen) had a Barnie K. Day
column that I think I must have written (not to imply
plagiarism, or anything, but I thought I was the only voice yelling in
the wind). Barnie offers sage advice: If you
don't want congestion, stop recruiting it!
"Close your economic development
offices...send
your tourism directors home". In Stuart,
Virginia (I have no idea where that is ) Mr. Day
says they still have schools that were built as
WPA projects. We tear them down after 30 years
(or spend millions "restoring" them).
Once again, I wish someone could find me a model
where development "broadened the tax
base". Don't give me that "tax
rate" mumbo jumbo. I only look like a simple
country person.
Wednesday, 15 November from jimmies market:
Wednesday we are offering Beef Stroganoff with
noodles, aside salad and French bread w/butter
for $6.00. For dessert, Nan made delicious Lemon
Bread Pudding. OK, the truth be known, it got a
little well done on the bottom, but I'll give
you an extra big piece with ice cream for
$3.50............. The location of "Stuart,
Virginia" has been identified as near the
North Carolina border in Patrick County. I have
never been in Patrick County, but now that I know
about it, I will put it on my list of "must
do" travel destinations.
(10)
We will examine this issue further in “Deconstructing
the Tower of Babel,” our next column.
Unfortunately an examination of this issue gets
complex for two reasons: First it is a hot
“political” issue and any position is seen
as just an argument for one side or the other
– conservative or liberal, R or D, progressive
or regressive, etc. The second reason is
that it quickly becomes involved in the science
of the human brain and how information is
processed. In an effort to give practical
application to this information George Lakoff
wrote "Moral Politics: How Liberals and
Conservatives Think." Guess what?
That gets one right back into problem one,
especially after he also wrote "Don’t Think of
An Elephant," a handbook for “liberal”
activists.
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