The Shape of the Future

E M Risse


 

Babble Postscript

 

The use of confusing vocabulary in the discussion of human settlement patterns just won't go away. Here's an update of uses and abuses since our last column.


                                                                            

The two columns on vocabulary (“The Foundation of Babble,” Nov. 28, 2005, and “Deconstructing the Tower of Babel,” Dec. 12, 2005) require a Postscript. Other columns that appeared in the Dec. 12 edition of Bacon’s Rebellion and events in the past three weeks collectively require a reprise.

 

First, the Good News

 

Jim Bacon’s lead column “The Gunst Guide to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” Dec. 12, 2005, is an informative item on Sidney Gunst’s view of Innsbrook, an “office campus” which he developed in western Henrico County. In the column, Gunst looks back on Innsbrook and Bacon notes the project's impact on the settlement pattern of the Greater Richmond New Urban Region. Bacon reports that Gunst is now committed a different type of project. He wants to build projects that create functional patterns and densities of land use. In the story, Jim never once used any of the Core Confusing Words, and I suspect not one reader missed them. (For further observations on Innsbrook and Gunst’s perspective see End Note One.)

 

One unintended linguistic landmine is sailed past in the column. That is the term “Town Center.” As the reference to Reston Town Center (a proper noun) and to the proposed “town center” for Fairfax Center that are cited in End Note One suggest, there is a wide variance among things called “town center.” A recent issue of Virginia Business notes that of the nine (largest) construction projects in the Commonwealth, two are “The Town Center of Virginia Beach” and “City Center at Oyster Point” in Newport News. Two of the others are “Rocketts Landing” in Richmond and “Waterview” in Arlington. Some of these are, and all are likely to be, called “Town Centers.”    

 

Things called “town centers” are not all large or complex. Especially in the lower density parts of prosperous New Urban Regions, every shopping center with a little extra landscaping promised by the developer is called a “town center.” The same is true for every commercial project with a mix of uses especially those designed by New Urbanists. The Mainstream Media coverage of “town centers” does not clarify the term. See “Town Centers Never Looked So Habitable; The Town Center’s Day Arrives,” by Heather Greenfield, WaPo, Oct. 20, 2005. A subtitle reads: “Reston’s a Model and More Are Planned” but few of the projects in the story or others that are called “town center” have much in common with Reston Town Center. Reston Town Center, by the way, occupies the site designated for Reston center or core in the original mid-60s concept for of the Planned New Community.

The validity of calling a project a “town center” can be tested by asking the question: “Of what ‘town’ is this place the ‘center’.” Reston, Virginia Beach and Oyster Point pass the test, most do not.

The “what town” question raises the issue of how big a place has to be to be called a “town.” A convenient cutoff is that a place called “town” must be large enough to have a relative balance of jobs/housing/services/ recreation/amenity. In other words, the size of a place which Planned New Community developers called a “village” and what S/PI terms a Beta Village or, upon achieving critical mass, an Alpha Village. The key is that the “town center” is the center of a real place, not just some curb cuts off an arterial. (See “Balanced Communities,” Aug. 23, 2005, for a discussion of relative scales of human settlement pattern components.)

 

Now the Bad

 

Also in the Dec. 12, 2005, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion there were two columns by Patrick McSweeney: “At Last, A Debate on Sprawl,” [Add Link] and “A Better Way to Grow.” These two columns used the word “sprawl” a total of 21 times in 26 paragraphs without providing a definition. The columns also used “suburban/suburbanites suburbs” eight times. We have known Patrick for nearly two decades and respect his thinking on settlement pattern issues and appreciate his contribution to the Friends of Virginia’s Future more than a decade ago.

Using one widely accepted interpretation of “sprawl,” I agree with most of what Patrick says. Using an equally widely used conception of the term “sprawl” he is talking nonsense. The problem is that I do not know what Patrick means by “sprawl.”

The first use of the term focuses on the cumulative negative impact of scattered urban land uses which can be calculated and documented. In other words, “dysfunctional human settlement patterns.” The second use is an expression of emotional revulsion toward certain land uses, building forms, roadside graphics or the vehicles that individuals drive to get to and from these land uses. The rhetoric of this second use is typified by that of James Howard Kunstler and illustrated by the graphics used to illustrate his books and reviews of his books. (See Chapter 15, Box 4, in "The Shape of the Future".)

 

Well you say, “EMR has given a lot more thought to definitions, so he is confused but the average reader has no such problem.” Hello? The only way that excuse makes sense is to apply the Humpty Dumpty rule of linguistics and vocabulary – “the word means exactly what I intend it to mean.” In fact that anti-rationale is just why there is a conflict over the cure for dysfunctional human settlement patterns – the curse of Babel.

 

Each person reading McSweeney’s columns will fill in their own neural linguistic framework and support or oppose the ideas he puts forth based on their interpretation of what “sprawl” means. How do we know this? McSweeney’s columns appeared in print weekly elsewhere before they appeared in Bacon’s Rebellion. In the second column McSweeney notes he got negative comments from “Republicans” about the first one to appear. That is because of the neural linguistic framework that has been established by and for those who support “sprawl” on an ideological basis. In fact, those at the right end of the spectrum (aka, “Republicans”) should be supporting McSweeney but they do not because of his word choice.

 

Babble on the Blog and the Newswire

 

Since publication of “The Foundation of Babble,” Nov. 28, 2005, and “Deconstructing The Tower of Babel,” Dec. 12, 2005, “observers/commentators/bloggers” at the Bacon’s Rebellion blog have pontificated on the lack of a need for clear language and proposed new applications of the word “city” like “ring city.” As suggested by End Note Two, it is best to use the word “City” only as part of an official name of a municipality.

 

Bloggers have intentionally used terms like “modern city” – an oxymoron of the “new antique” class. In this case by opening a comment with the posting with: “I believe that modern cities...” they confound the confusion by implying facts about “cities,” watersheds, waste water systems and storm water systems that are not correct and definitely not “modern.”

 

Over on the VA Newswire, Jim Bacon reported on Dec. 14, 2005, about two new cutting-edge companies, BoldMouth and New Media Strategies, that are out to synthetically duplicate the organic system that supports word-of-mouth advertising.  The ramifications of this “advancement” to overpower what Malcolm Gladwell documents in the revived Year 2000 best seller "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" will be critical to creating effective media communications. We explore this impact in the section titled “Economic Competition’s Impact on Language and Mainstream Media in the Dec. 12, 2005, column.

 

Kotkin: On a Roll, or Playing a Role?

 

As if to confirm that his earlier writings highlighted in “Deconstructing the Tower of Babel,” Dec. 12, 2005, were not an aberration, Joel Kotkin wrote in mid-December a review of Robert Bruegmann’s book, "Sprawl: A Compact History." (See End Note Three.)

 

As with the earlier work, Kotkin’s factoids are not “all wrong.” Some are right but are lost in fuzzy language. The most important point is that Kotkin fails to realize his sugary praise of Bruegmann’s work using inarticulate words undermine the very points he is trying to make in his reviews and in his book, "The City: A Global History," as well as the very points Bruegmann is trying to raise in his book.

One is tempted to say Kotkin is just “lost in scale,” the most common form of profound Geographic Illiteracy but it is more than that, he is “lost in vocabulary” as well. (See Backgrounder “Geographic Illiteracy.”)

Kotkin exhibited a very different style in a column that appeared in the Dec. 11, 2005, Portland Oregonian. This op-ed titled “Portland: lost in its own reflection” is a mean-spirited attack on those who find Portland attractive. His favorite literary device is sarcasm: “the Ephemeral City” and “narcissus of the West.” It was surprising that he could get so many facts wrong or so badly misconstrue Jane Jacob’s perspective when there is published evidence that Ms. Jacobs holds the opposite view. In fact some residential neighborhoods in Portland look a lot like Jane Jacob’s Toronto neighborhood.

 

The reason for the problems with Kotkin’s view of Portland is that the op-ed appears to be “sponsored content.” This judgment is based on the speed with which it was sent around the Internet by the self serving “pro-sprawl” lobby. We received four copies from different sources within three days.

 

At first blush the Portland op-ed would appear to damage Kotkin’s credibility as scholar because it echoes the arguments of the run-of-the-mill Portland bashers. A quick search of the web suggests that the problem is worse than that. One observer pointed out that Kotkin had advised another New Urban Region (St. Louis) to do just what he criticized Portland for doing and being successful at it. Other observers note that in his sweeping categorization of urban agglomerations he fails to list places that run counter to his argument (e.g. the continued decline of the “city.”) This may be because with an inadequate vocabulary, the “city” places and or the “suburban” places do not exhibit the trend he is trying to be the first to document or christen.

Human settlement pattern is a complex topic and unless one has a firm grasp on vocabulary and a comprehensive conceptual framework, these and other errors are bound to occur. Had Kotkin used more precise words he may have realized that errors existed in his generalizations.

Well, now really! What is so wrong with unabashed statement of differing views even if they are not supported by fact? It is just like literary criticism, right?

 

Wrong. Citizens are not forced to live in other people’s books or movies. They are forced to live in human settlement patterns that have been agglomerated based on the cumulative impact of bad location decisions.

 

Here is a good example of the immediate impact of items like Kotkin’s attack on Portland. One of the first to flash the Kotkin item on Portland around the Internet was Ken Reid, a publicist (aka, spin doctor) who works for Virginia Mobility Associates LLC and other groups sponsored by Chris Walker in Reston. Reid packaged the Kotkin material and sent it to those whom he thought, if they believed the Kotkin op-ed or were disheartened by it, might help his client’s cause with respect to the stopping Rail to Dulles.

 

All this would be fun if it were not so tragic.

 

Other Straws in the Wind

 

First some good news:  Media critic and author of "The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV and American Culture," Leslie Savan has written an new book titled "Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and, Like, Whatever." As the title suggests, this work may put in a more accessible context the work of the academic linguists.

 

On the very day the “Deconstructing the Tower of Babel” appeared with the exploration of how media was being driven by advertising, WaPo published a story on Rick Smith’s NewsUSA, Inc. “Firm Files Believable, Newsy Copy, for a Price; NewsUSA, Inc. Emphasizes Restrained Style in ‘Placing’ Articles in U.S. Papers.” The story by Annys Shin describes how this company distributes items that look like news stories that feature products and services of NewsUSA, Inc’s clients, which it then distributes to newspapers and radio stations. With Mainstream Media outlets under economic pressure, they apparently snap up these “news ads.” (This is an obvious example of “Economic Competition’s Impact on Language and Mainstream Media in the Dec. 12, column cited earlier.)

 

WaPo came through with a “bus” story by the reporter, whom we cautioned not to use or overuse the word. There is nothing “wrong” with the story. In fact I expect it to show up in the clipping services of environmental /good government groups. The story documents the plight of those who live here, work there and have no car. (See Boorstein, Michelle, "For the Carless, Life Is a Wait," The Washington Post, Dec. 18, 2005, Page C5.)

 

Why is this a problem? Because it fails to take advantage of the opportunity to clarify the great gulf between mobility systems that rely on private vehicles vs. those that rely on shared vehicles. By doing this, the story fuels the conflict between the “strict father” and the “nurturant parent” views of society – and settlement patterns – as articulated by Lakoff.

 

On Dec. 25, Mark Fisher’s column in WaPo is titled “Suburbanite Finds a Leafy Refuge From the Sprawl” with a jump page title of “Community Spaces Enrich Life in Leafy Enclave.” It is a nice story about a resident of Washington Grove, Md. Washington Grove is one of a number of 19th-century summer retreats that have been surrounded by more recent urban development. The column could have provided useful insight with the same facts but for reliance on Core Confusing Words.

 

One more note: Have you noticed that only almost every form, registration or application that asks for your address there is a line for "city" instead of "postal address?" This is true even for those applying for "rural assistance."

 

As noted in Deconstructing The Tower of Babel,” Dec. 12, 2005, as long as language is just a matter of "opionio" and that information impacting citizen understanding of human settlement patterns is far game "in the marketplace of ideas" where there is no right and wrong, civilization will continue to slide toward entropy.

 

-- January 3, 2006

 


 

End Notes

 

(1) I recall discussing Innsbrook with Gunst in his office and taking pictures of the project when I was doing research (from San Diego to Dallas, to Kansas City, to Atlanta) in preparation for designing and developing Fair Lakes. What Gunst says rings true and matches our own reflections on the 860-acre Fair Lakes/Fair Oaks Estates projects on I-66 in Fairfax County.

 

 There are some differences: Unlike in Innsbrook, there was a concerted effort to create a context for Fair Lakes. The development entity (Hazel Peterson aka, HP) applied for rezoning of the property that became Fair Lakes and Fair Oaks Estates HP drove/led Fairfax County to create the Fairfax Center plan. This plan covered 5,500 acres and included a town center and two village centers. Fair Lakes was the “employment neighborhood” of the North Village. This late 70s/early 80s work was carried out before S/PI started using the term “Balanced Community.”

 

 Fairfax Center was “designed” by a 54-member citizen/business task force and a team of consultants as a Planned New Community with 1,500 different parcel owners but with a balance of jobs/housing/services/ recreation/amenity. The role of the Fair Lakes neighborhood was to contribute most of the employment and some of the housing for the North Village. The Fairfax Government Center was the major employment node of the South Village. Fair Oaks Mall and the adjacent land was to morph to become the “town center.”  (The third “village” of Fairfax Center should be Fairfax City but that is another story.)

 

 There is more to learn from Bacon’s column on Gunst’s new commitment. The mix of uses that would result from Gunst’s current vision on the 850-acre Innsbrook are worth considering.  Here is a back-of-the-envelope “plan” for the site that reflects the original developer’s new objectives: 

 

 Let’s keep 50 percent in open space -- water, woods, and informal play fields, something like Central Park – not the one off I-95 in Greater Fredericksburg, but the one that Frederick Law Olmstead designed on Manhattan.   Develop the other half of the site with a "new urbanist, 2-, 3- and 4-story mix of uses with an occasional node like Reston Town Center. This is the distribution of land uses that the market would now reward with the greatest return on investment and also yield the highest per-square-foot values for the future owners.  The FAR would be around 2.0 on the developed acreage, 1.0 on the whole site. That is about five times as intensive as the existing Innsbrook.

 

This sketch means Innsbrook would double the employment (office, service, retail) to 50,000 workers in 14 million square feet of building area and have enough residential area (in townhouses, zero lot lines, condos, lofts and live-work units to house 30,000 people. The garage, driveway, roadway savings would cover the cost of ubiquitous broadband for every office, shop and residence as well as a PRT system to serve the core of Greater West Henrico. The PRT system could be extend to other parts of the Greater Richmond New Urban Region.

 

Not all the New Innsbrookians would be among the 50,000 employed in the core of the Greater West Henrico Balanced Community but a lot would. The big plus is that there would be no need to develop 10,000 acres in Goochland County (or some other place) and VDOT would not have to build roads to get to and from Goochland County and all the other places.

 

(2)  The phrase “ring city” is very likely to be confused with the phrase “circle city” coined by the well known ecologist / geographer Philip Lewis two decades ago.  Lewis was, of course, referring to settlement patterns at a completely different scale.  The New Urban Regions centered on Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis-St. Paul comprised part of a “circle city” as I recall. 

 

(3) Kotkin’s review of Bruegmann’s book (“In Praise of ‘Burbs”) appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 10,  and it was e-mailed to me the next day just after I had sent off the Dec. 12 column.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Risse and his wife Linda live inside the "Clear Edge" of the "urban enclave" known as Warrenton, a municipality in the Countryside near the edge of the Washington-Baltimore "New Urban Region."

 

Mr. Risse, the principal of

SYNERGY/Planning, Inc., can be contacted at spirisse@aol.com.

 

Read his profile here.