Bacon's Rebellion

This isn’t terribly Virginia-specific but I thought I’d share it. Just heard NPR this morning talk with Matt Miller, a Fortune magazine columnist who has written a book titled “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.”

His thesis is that many assumptions that have been true in America for decades are no longer true. This really rngs true. A fe:

Children will make more than their parents: For years it was assumed that as the American dream unfolded, each generation got better jobs and pay. This is no longer the case as a paradigm shift in the economy takes hold. I know it’s not true in my case but that’s my choice. I wanted to be a journalist and not a doctor. But I think our kids will not have the high-paying jobs that many of us have.

Your company will keep paying for your welfare. Dead long ago. We are the ONLY country in the world that has employers pay for our health insurance in most cases. So, we get really expensive health care that makes our companies uncompetitive in the world markets. Universal health insurance, here we come.

Tax are bad This will be a tough one to swallow to dogmatic BR bloggers but it is true. The current downturn has shown that financial markets can’t regulate themselves and we can’t rely on them for our welfare. Sure we’ll lower taxes to get us out of this mess, but then watch out. All the TMTs of the world are going to have to accept a fndamental shift that will make the U.S>more like tax-happy FRance (or so Newsweek says). Government will be playing a much bigger role in our lives and will need more taxes to help pay for it. Miller says the real issue is tochange who pays the tax. Rather than have a regressive payroll tax that hurts the poor and middle class, tax polluting industries like coal-fired utilities.

BR bloggers. It’s a Brave New World.

Peter Galuszka

Rather than add this note to the ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE post, EMR will put it here because it is important to understand these issueS. Why is it important?

Because NovaMiddleMan’s idea of economic reality is exactly why those who made bad location decisions are hurting now and will be hurting far more in five years. All those still alive will still be hurting in fifty years if there is not Fundamental Transformation of human settlement patterns and Fundamental Transformation of governance structure.

NovaMiddleMan said:

“Look dude the free market is at work.”

Was this the ‘free market’ that was declared “dead” in Davos last week?

The US of A is a democracy and a clear majority are inclined to think Behavioral Economics is now in control and that a “free market” – which according Adam Smith presumes informed buyers and sellers – has only rarely existed since 1870 outside the minds of those who perpetuated the myth to gain economic and political leverage.

Some think the “popular” backlash against the current stimulus packages is due to belief in “free markets.” Not so, the popular backlash is driven by revolution over what happened to the money that was doled out and wasted in the last stimulus package.

“People make decisions and face consequences.”

But “people” had no idea what the consequences would be.

Tell us how you feel when you are 75 and still have to work ten hours a day and have no health benefits because of the $75-Trillion in unfunded liabilities for those ahead of you in line.

Or do you plan to be one of the few lucky ones at the top of the ziggurat? Watch out for the pitchforks, machetes and pikepoles.

“Here is my perspective. Pardon me for not having as much context. I’m a bit younger than you folks :-p.”

What is that about those who do not understand history having to repeat it?

In this case there are not enough resources left support a second round of mass overconsumption with 6 billion humans all wanting and deserving a slice of the pie.

“Its 2003 and I am one of the young people powering the new economy of Northern Virginia.”

Lets say “overpowering” the resources upon which a market economy depends. It is not your fault NMM, it is all of our faults but some of us have been pointing out the cliff since 1973, many for longer. Nouriel Roubini has come lately to the Common.

“Some people want to get married and have kids. In 2003-2006 there were only a couple choices.”

Choices about getting married or choices about getting married and having children and living the American Dream as portrayed by MainStream Media advertising? (See “A Yard Where Johnny Can Run and Play,” 1 Dec 2003.)

Even for the later there were many choices unless they relied on Autonomobile and shelter advertising and stories in MainStream Media for guidance. Millions of couples made more intelligent choices than those in Bristow and Dale City.

Check out the story about Grace Church in Saturday’s WaPo Real Estate Section. Just for starters, if small groups of your friends got together they could have created real dooryards from the hundreds of similar buildings inside R=10.

Too busy playing video games to understand the real world? Not smart.

“Finding a place under 500k…”

See above.

“… in a good school district …”

As noted in the 3 February WaPo story if one bought when they got married, by the time their children were ready for school the schools were over crowded.

“… with low crime.”

Define “low crime.” Check out the “safest” places by Prof Lucy’s calculations.

“The only choices were the two places mentioned in the article and outer Loudoun.”

Not in “outer” Loudoun (R=30 to R=45) and not “inner” Loudoun (R=20 to R=30 – the same Radius Band and Prince William) either. Both inner and outer Loudoun have different conditions.

For example, dwellings in the same price range as those in Bristow and Dale City were Attached Dwellings in the eastern Loudoun Beta Communities because they were closer to Jobs and Services due to the existence or Reston and Dulles Airport. These places also did not make the Top 12 in commuting times among Census Designated Places.

The bigger issue is this:

In the profiled enclaves between the time they were married and the first child going to school they spent on average 3,375 hours pre Household commuting. If your cohort spent half that time creating functional Dooryards (see Grace Church for example) they could have also evolved safe Clusters and good Neighborhood schools.

OK, no agents make a profit from sweat equity and building safe Clusters and good Neighborhood schools from the inside and so there is no advertising and no MainStream Media stories… But you get the idea.

“This was insane.”

NOW YOU ARE TALKING

“There needed to be a housing correction.”

The question is: what kind of a “correction?”

“Now you can find a place for under 500k in many places.”

Not a place that meets your criteria because the schools are going down and the crime is going up faster than the price is changing.

“Problem solved all through market forces with no planning or nanny stateisims.”

The problem is not solved, it is only now coming into focus for most citizens.

“And I still say show me the demand for eoconoboxes right on top of each other with no cars.”

EMR dos not advocate “econoboxes” nor does he advocate depriving Households of vehicles. See performance measures in original post.

“Right…. Its not what the public wants”

If the full costs were fairly allocated, the public would in fact want (and need) different settlement patterns and the dwellings need not be “econoboxes” nor “on top of each other.”

“P.S. the people who live in the inner areas don’t want what your development plan is anyway. Unless you can provide adequate infrastructure first and show the quality of life for existing residents wont be negatively impacted.”

Here NMM is correct.

These NIMBY-like criteria can be (and should be) met.

The first step is for those in your generation to understand the reality of the existing conditions and the real future options.

EMR

Like Asking for a Show of Hands
The Employee Free Choice Act does far more than “merely level the playing field” as Mr. Lawrence Frame’s editorial suggests; in fact, it tips the scales in favor of unions. This is especially bad news for Virginia as our largely union free workforce is a primary reason that we are annually ranked as a top state in which to do business.
by Clinton S. Morse

Don’t Mess with Virginia’s Biennial Budget System
Legislation being proposed by Delegates Pollard and Saxman to adopt an annual rather than a biennial budget process needs to be rejected. Under the current format a more realistic budgetary picture is presented to the public and longer range planning is encouraged, two things that go a long way in making Virginia the best-managed state in the union.
by Patrick McSweeney

Time for Non-Partisan Redistricting
With the process of redistricting just around the corner, the time for passing legislation that reforms the system is now. Virginia can’t afford another round of partisan redistricting that results in incumbents going unchallenged.
by Olga Hernandez

Fairfax County – a Case Study on Government Excess Spending
Growth in government spending and new programs play a larger role in the financial hardships faced by Virginia and its localities than many our elected officials are letting on. To combat this we need to increase budget transparency by getting the checkbooks online and look towards competitive bidding and privatization to save money and increase efficiencies.
by Mike Thompson

In Defense of Private Enterprise
The increasingly frequent calls for community service are not bad, and a national focus on that front is probably desirable. However, our attention and support really needs to be focused on free enterprise and capitalism, specifically the ethical and responsible applications thereof.
by John Palatiello

Fix Virginia First – What to do after an economic bubble bursts
With the Democrats in Congress set on doing the exact wrong things to turn out ailing national economy around we must focus our attention on fortifying the Virginia economy. That means tax cuts, spending cuts and entitlement reform.
by James Atticus Bowden

On 24 March 2008 BaconsRebellion published EMR’s column # 118 titled “Good News, Bad Reporting.” That column was about:

Good news: The Regional, nation-state and Global economic slowdown provided a chance, with intelligent management, to achieve a sustainable trajectory without a crash.

Bad reporting: MainStream Media scaring citizens into thinking that carefully backing away from decades of Mass OverConsumption fueled by public and private debt, international borrowing and burning through natural capital was a bad thing and would lead to a crash.

On 3 February 2009, GM reported vehicle sales at 1982 levels.

The way the MainStream Media spun that you would think this was bad news.

There were quite a few vehicles sold in 1982. Citizens do not NEED a lot of new cars. What they NEED are functional human settlement patterns with Accessible and Affordable housing so that citizens of the US of A can be happy and safe and not NEED a lot of new Large, Private Vehicles.

If cheap money is pumped into the economy so citizens can buy lots of new cars, the cost of imported energy would go back up and then there would be a real crash.

EMR

What to do after an economic bubble bursts.

The economic crisis is an economic bubble. It’s a very big bubble. But, it isn’t an economic meltdown or the end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it, hysterical hyperbole. Even if politicians, the news people, and losing special business interests bleat that it is so. Yet, a 24 month adjustment – tops – can become a disaster if the politicians use the statist and socialist tools which made the Great Depression worse – and longer. Since it appears that President Obama and Democrat majority in Congress will do, precisely, what is wrong economically and right politically – then we need to fix Virginia first. Cut taxes, cut spending, reform entitlements to build individual savings.

This isn’t rocket science. Nor, is it the inscrutable intricacies of high finance. It is Economics 10. Niall Ferguson nails the past, present and makes interesting suggestions about the future in his “The Ascent of Money.” He calls today’s crisis as it was unfolding in 2007. His book is a tour de force about economic history that is readable, understandable, and incredibly prescient. It’s history at its best – the past providing prologue for the present.

The guidance is simple. The best way forward is painful in the short term, but rewarding as soon as possible. Obey the laws of economics like following the laws of physics. Don’t jump off a building in physics = no financial institution is too big NOT to fail in economics. Oops, since it’s too late to let the losers on Wall Street and in Detroit fail, we, The People, are out at least $1 trillion. Or, rather, the debt load on the next generation has increased by more big bricks. So, what’s Virginia to do when the Federal government mangles the market and bungles the economy?

Follow the laws of economics in this market of 7 million persons.

Our Commonwealth exists in our unique economy that has evolved since civilizations started in 4000 BC. Virginia is an evolving place in time with a traceable history. The economy is constantly changing – and will into the future. The basis of this economy is capital. Money.

Capital is to a family what the farm, the fishing boat, or hunting party was to our ancestors. It’s the basis of our survival. It’s the means to whatever materialism we pursue. Available capital is the measure of individual economic opportunity that has become essential and intertwined, like a helical of DNA, with individual freedom.

Yes, America was for the most part poor and free for much of its history. But, the dislocation of labor from the farm with industrialization era and urbanization – and the fragility of employment with the information era and globalization – makes individual capital = the family farm.

Farmers can provide for their family and make some profit based on the certainty of what their labor produces – and subject to the uncertainty of weather. Most Virginians have a job and a savings account instead of 40 acres. The security of the soil must be replaced by more security in savings. Growing capital as a crop is essential to provide for the Good People of Virginia. Every Virginian can, and must, have personal savings.

Government can’t create capital or jobs. Virginia must protect the free functioning of the marketplace just as it is supposed to protect individual freedoms. This is limited government, not laissez-faire, in action. It serves the individual sovereign of the state – while defending the working person from abuse and the environment from damage. It turns government from serving special interests as Virginia does now.

We must fix Virginia, first, for more, better economic opportunity – to enable, expand and enhance personal freedom for the individual to chose where and how he works, lives, plays and raises a family.

Cut taxes. Cut personal and corporate taxes.

Cut spending. Stop un-Constitutional spending.

Cut market interference in the production of energy – without sacrificing the environment.

Reform entitlements, like Virginia’s formula for Medicaid.

Reform mandates, like Virginia’s Standards of Quality for education. The SOQs have been updated, but they need to be reformed.

Encourage individual savings. Provide the tax incentives. Take the ’04 half percent sales tax sham and convert it into Commonwealth Trust Accounts for each Virginian. Focus the accounts as health savings accounts now. Expand their uses later as they grow.

Elect the politicians who can tell Virginia – before the ’09 election – what taxes and spending they will cut, how they will reform entitlements and grow individual savings.

Finally, know that an ‘economic adjustment’ = hard personal hardship for families. Their pain is real. The healing medicine includes incentives for charity and tough love, not government handouts. Government generosity makes matters worse – slows the recovery of the economy – and, sooner or later, punishes every family getting back on their feet.

Let’s fix Virginia first. Now.

Military spending propelled economic growth in Virginia during the past decade. Now that rocket fuel has run out. Fox News reports that the Obama administration “has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon’s budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent — about $55 billion.”

Today, the President and Vice President launched a task force on “the middle class.”

Here is what EMR said last month in a draft of Chapter 26:

A 2009 PERSPECTIVE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY

There is a larger context for understanding the importance of Vocabulary. The Shape of the Future, Chapter 1. employs statements made during the decade of the 1990s by senior elected leaders to illustrate the importance of an understanding of human settlement patterns and need for a robust Vocabulary to discuss the topic. When the book was completed in 2000, 20-20 hindsight provided a crystal clear way to compare statements of the intent of the Clinton / Gore Administration with the results over the following 8 years. Chapter 1. provides the perspectives and goals of President Clinton and Vice President Gore in their own words and then evaluates progress on those goals.

Now the US of A stands on the cusp of a new Administration. With no hindsight upon which to rely, a robust Vocabulary – a prerequisite of getting the issues “right” – becomes even more important due to the diminished resource reserves that remain after 35 years of intentional Mass OverConsumption to fuel “growth” and prosperity for a few at the top of the Ziggurat.

There is a broad range of specific problems that citizens who voted for ‘change’ hope the new administration will address. The broad topic which the obligatory Vice Presidential Task Force will address is: “Strengthen the Middle Class.”

At first blush, strengthening the Middle Class would appear to address a number of hot button issues:

1. The economy
2. Job creation
3. Energy independence
4. Affordable health care
5. among others

It might be obvious that “strengthening the Middle Class” must address the Mobility and Access Crisis, the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and the Helter Skelter Crisis. However, without a functional Vocabulary that reality will be missed by even those with the best of intentions.

The meaning and intent of “strengthening” should be clear to all: Improving the economic, social and physical well being of…

… of the “Middle Class,” of course. But there is the rub.

What is the Middle Class?

The Wikipedia discussion of “middle class” opens with this statement: “The term “middle Class” has a long history and has had many, sometimes contradictory, meanings.” Well put!

The bottom line is that almost no one believes that the classic Middle Class still exists. That Middle Class existed after the dust settled following World War II. It was articulated and confirmed by C Wright Mills, David Riesman, Robert and Helen Lynd and others. While Middletown’s Middle Class has changed and some say it does not exist, the term “Middle Class” is still used even though it has morphed to become a prime candidate for listing as a Core Confusing Word.

The Wikipedia discussion of “American Middle Class” focuses on three academic “class models” to summarize current scholarly classification of social class. Although there are three separate models, they divide the post 2000 social structure into four broad groupings that are remarkably similar. The four classes (with three sets of titles and percentages of the population) break down this way:

Class 1. Capitalist Class (1%) // Upper Class (1%) // The Super Rich (0.5%) and The Rich (0.5%) – percent total of the class is 1 percent in all three models.

Class 2. Upper Middle Class and Lower Middle Class (45%) // Upper Middle Class and Lower Middle Class (46%) // Middle Class (46%) – percent total varies from 45 to 46 percent in the three models.

Class 3. Working Class (30%) and Working Poor (13%) // Working Class (32%) // Working Class (40-45%) – percent total ranges from 32 to 45 percent in the three models.

Class 4. Underclass (12 %) // Lower Class (14-20%) // The Poor (12%) – percent total ranges from 12 to 20 percent in the three models.

The totals for those below “Middle Class” range from 42 to 65 percent. Note: The totals do not equal 100 percent within any single model.

In the three models selected by the Wikipedia authors the academics have remarkably similar categories and percentage distribution. The biggest variation are in the names and allocation of population of the lowest two classes.

In this ‘composite’ view of the Ziggurat, it seems there is not much room at the top. However, one percent of the population is about 3,060,000 citizens or something over 1,000,000 Households. These fortunate few would fill the largest NFL stadium about 37 times. While they compose a minuscule percentage of the population, this class provides – directly and indirectly – the majority of the funding for ideologically oriented Institutions (aka, think tanks or ‘Belief Tanks’) and support for the two major political parties. See THE ESTATES MATRIX for discussion of the impact of Institutions (especially Belief Tanks) in the New Third Estate. Also see Supercapitalism noted in Chapter 36. – Fireside Reading

It is significant that Class 1. (Upper) plus Class 2. (Middle) no longer make up a majority of the citizens of the US of A as they did in 1960 and in 1973. This raises the first question about the Vice Presidents Task Force:

Who needs “strengthening” most?

Vocabulary becomes even more important when one digs a little deeper. The core concern according to Vice President-Elect Biden’s own statement is “Working Families.”

Here is a ‘two-fer’ with respect to Vocabulary:

First, “family:” For reasons spelled out in GLOSSARY, the term “family” itself has become a candidate for Core Confusing Word status. This is due to disaggregation of the settlement pattern and to the constant changes now experienced within almost all Households / Dwelling Units.

Second, and even more important, if it is “working” citizens that are of concern from a social structure perspective, those are folks is a different place in the Ziggurat (and in a different class) than “the Middle Class.”

There is no question those individuals and Households who are productive members of society (aka, working) and who have been slipping further and further behind since the mid-70s NEED to be the focus of attention if democracy is to be preserved.

As emphasized in Chapter after Chapter of TRILO-G the widening Wealth Gap is anathema to, and incompatible with long term stability of democratic processes and to market economies.

So if Vice President-Elect Biden is to “strengthen the Middle Class,” the first thing to do is to define what it is he and the task force are talking about. There is no way to “strengthen the Middle Class” unless the Task Force understands reality and embraces a realistic Vocabulary.

There is a second point in this context with respect to “The American Dream” of working citizens and expanding home ownership. A fair allocation of location variable costs will make it very clear that from 60 to 70 percent of the population can never afford Single Household Detached Dwellings. That does not rule out “home ownership” but it does impact the settlement pattern. Further, most of the urban citizens who can not afford Single Household Detached Dwellings also cannot afford Large, Private Vehicles to secure Mobility and Access in dispersed settlement patterns.

This is not a matter of policy or preference, it is a matter of physics and economics and also requires an understanding of human settlement patterns. See THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

EMR

One perpetual and frustrating riff I hear on this blog and throughout the conservative elements of Virginia is the bug-a-boo about government regulation.

Everyone from the Gipper on down has told us that we need to get the government off our backs, that government is the problem. I think the opposite is true. We need government to actually do its job.

Ask people who eat peanut butter.

According to The Washington Post, Lynchburg-based Peanut Corporation of America shipped contaminated peanut butter from a plant in Blakely, Georgia 12 times in the past two years. The firm’s plant has been linked to a recent outbreak of salmonella that has killed eight people and sickened 502 in 43 states across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Closely-held Peanut Corporation of America doesn’t make the types of peanut butter who find on grocery shelves. Instead, it sells its product to foodmakers such as Kellogg, Trader Joe’s and Little Debbie which put in their products.

Federal investigators have found four strains of salmonella at the Georgia plant. One strain was found next to a washroom, which isn’t surprising since salmonella is spread by animal feces. It seems possible that some plant workers didn’t wash their hands thoroughly as instructed after using the toilet.

The firm isn’t required to share internal testing results for samonella with regulators. But there sems to be a problem with the lack of regulation. The Food and Drug Admininistration is tasked with plant inspections but in this case gve the job to Georgia state authorities. How come? FDA says it just doesn’t have enough regulators to go around.

State regulators inspected the plant most recently in October. Lo and behold, that’s when the contaminated batches of peanut butter this time around were being produced. But the Georgia regulators somehow didn’t test for salmonella. State authorities are investigating why they didn’t.

Getting hard-pressed state regulators to do the jobs of hard-presssed federal regulators has been the modus operandi for years. Here in Virginia, too-few state regulators actually do the heavy lifting for the feds by investigating hazardous chemical waste sites and air and water pollution control as mandated by federal laws.

The right-wing General Assembly is loath to spend much money on regulation because we just love that “pro business” moniker. We also go for loopey self-regulation. So, we really don’t have many regulators compared to other states which take public health and the environment more seriously.

Not many might remember but I sure am reminded of Kepone which polluted the James River back in the 1970s. The carcinogenic pesticide was made at a converted gas station through a scheme operated by now-defunct Allied Chemical. The idea was to somehow shield the chemical giant legally by having a little sub-company make the stuff at the Hopewell site. Waste ended up in Hopewell’s water sewage system and since it’s a chlorinated hydrocarbon that doesn’t break down, it retained its toxic potency for years after it was flushed into the James River.

So where were the state regulators? Probably off keeping the state safe for profits and business interests.

So next time you are bitching about government regulation or reading the pathetic new “Bacons Rebellion” e-zine operated by the dogmatic “Thomas Jefferson Institute” with its whining about the need for limited government, think peanut butter.

And think that half of the people affected by the peanut butter poisoning were children. They could be yours.

Peter Galuszka

Here’s a curious tale that you’re not likely to see in the Richmond Times-Dispatch or other Media General outlet.

Diane Cantor, a veteran finance industry official and wife of GOP Congressional wunderkind Eric Cantor, is an executive of a bank that got a $267 million federal bailout even though conservative Cantor has at times publicly opposed the federal bailout program.

According to the investigative journalism Website propublica.org, New York Private Bank and Trust was the beneficiary of a Treasury Department purchase of $267 million work of the bank’s preferred stock to shore it up. The bank is the holding company for Emigrant Bank with 35 branches mostly around New York City. Diane Cantor runs the Virginia branch of Emigrant’s wealth-management division, Virginia Private Bank & Trust, which targets wealthy clients.

Diane Cantor is also a director on the board of Media General, which owns the Times-Dispatch whose editorial staff gushes constantly about how wonderful Cantor, now House Republican Whip, and his wife are. The newspaper does note Mrs. Cantor’s association with the board, but as far as the newspaper’s editorial and news staffs go, “never is heard a discouraging word” about the Cantors. The TD acts as Cantor’s personal PR machine since he is seen as an up-and-coming young Republican leader destined to re-energize the now-hapless GOP leadership left in shambles after eight years of Bush-Cheney-Rove.

Prorepublica.org did talk with Cantor’s office which says that Eric did not know about the bailout of his wife’s bank and did notihng to intercede for it.

If that’s the truth, then Cantor is in a somewhat better position than Rep. Barney Frank, the outspokenly liberal chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Frank, a Democrat, admits he did intercede to get OneUnited Bank of Boston federal bailout money. Frank insists it was a legitimate attempt to help the minority-owned bank, according to The Boston Globe.

Even so, the news puts Cantor in an awkward position. Last summer, when the Bush Administration’s proposal for a $700 billion bailout of troubled financial companies was introduced, Cantor initially pushed for an alternative structure so taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for it. Cantor suggested using investors on Wall Street to fund the bailout.

He ended up up supporting the program which has ended up giving Diane’s bank taxpayer money. More recently, he voted against releasing the second tranche of the funds.

What’s next is up for grabs. There has been plenty of criticism of the $700 billion bailout program which former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson introduced in a spare, two-and-a-half page long proposal so vague that it wouldn’t get an Average Joe an auto loan. Paulson initially suggested the bailout be used to buy up toxic loans, but since it has been used for just about everything else, from stock buys of banks, to funding bank acquisitions, to helping auto companies and their finance firms.

Barack Obama’s team is ready to propose major restructurings and major re-regulation of the Bushies’ giveaway that has benefited lots of Wall Street insiders as well as Diane whether Eric knew of it or not.

It isn’t clear if anything was done wrong here. The sad part is that because of Media General’s corporate monopoly over news coverage in much of the state, not many Virginians are likely to learn of what is a legitimate news story at all. And that’s a damned shame.

Peter Galuszka

Well down in the post titled “The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing” Peter G. said:

“EMR,

“It’s so frustrating. I can never win. Just when I think I come up with a really good post, you tell me I got the vocabulary all wrong. If I get the vocabulary right, you’ll say my point is all wrong.

“Geez!

“Peter Galuszka”

Peter:

EMR did not intend to be critical in any way. As many other comments following you post suggest, settlement patterns that have evolved since 1940 are different things to different people.

All we say is to understand why patterns are functional or dysfunctional everyone must speak the same language. If you do not like ours, come up with your own.

Here is a little exercise for readers:

Take the original post by Peter, Jim Bacon’s 6:59 AM post (good to see Jim up early!) and Groveton’s posts of 12:13 PM and 12:59 PM. Print them out and circle all the times that “suburb” and “suburban” are used. No look at those circled words and see how many different things they describe, especially in the context of the many different experiences noted in the other comments – some good, some bad; some accurate, some ‘adjusted’ to fit preconceived ideas and agendas.

Peter: I have not visited or lived in some of the places you have. But I do know something about one place you visited. My office / studio at North Lake Cluster in the Fair Lakes Neighborhood of the North Village in Fairfax Center, VA.

Was that place “Urban” or less than urban?

To refresh your memory the residents of North Lake Cluster live at 30 persons per acre – yes even with that great view of the lake and the Openspace from the windowns and decks. You may recall the Four Seasons photos of the very large Swamp Maple from the front porch that could have been taken in Sherwood Forest.

It turns out that if one half the Clusters in an Alpha Community were at that 30 pn acre density, then 25 percent could be Multi-Household dwellings (at 40 to 60 per acre) and 25 percent could be Single Household Detached Dwellings on quarter to half acre lots (at 10 persons per acre) and achieve 10 persons per acre at the Alpha Community Scale.

That distribution of dwelling unit types was the original plan for the almost Alpha Community of Greater Reston. The ratio could have been 30 / 40 / 30 as it is in Village-scale Burke Centre and in the still Beta Community of Columbia, MD, Peachtree City GA, etc.

The density of the Cluster of Single Household Attached Dwellings listed above is just what our current dwelling is, here in Menlough Cluster next to the Clear Edge (the Town and County leaders word, not just EMRs) around Greater Warrenton-Fauquier.

Fairfax Center was designed to have a relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A and 55,000 residents on 5,500 acres. Given its context it has not done badly but for some unfortunate rezonings that undermined the Neighborhood Center service idea — everyone could walk to get weekly necessities in a 100,000 sq ft Neighborhood center, etc. Today it would have lots of live-work units…

Fairfax Center is still not that bad even with traffic from US Route 50, I – 66 and Fairfax Parkway running through the middle and is one of the three Beta Communities we choose to visit inside the Clear Edge. The worst “development” in Fairfax Center? The Fairfax Government Center, hands down.

During the Blueprint process, the Coalition for Smarter Growth came up with some good ideas to evolve Fairfax Center into a great Alpha Community: Fairfax “City” would become the third Village and the Fair Oaks Mall would be reconfigured to span both US Route 50 and I-66 and both the Core of Fairfax City and the new Core Village would be served by an extension of METRO.

But no, the economic activity was scattered across the R = 20 to R = 40 Radius Band and at far greater TOTAL cost.

Oh yes one other thing: Larry do you have no shame?

“…and it occurred to me that even after a gazillion tomes from EMR – I still don’t have a feel for what he thinks is an optimal density level for a balanced community.”

First, EMR has written one Tome and working on a second.

But more important, when reading this post do you not recall seeing the 10 Person Rule [10 Persons per Acre at the Alpha Community scale] at least 50 times in last two years? If TJI had not screwed up the BR archive, EMR could cite you the number of times it was mentioned.

Look, there are only Five Natural Laws of Human Settlement Pattern. You can write them on your arm with a Sharpie and refer to them when you get confused.

And on the Tysons issue. How many times has EMR suggested you read Column # 25, “The Shape of Richmond’s Future,” 16 Feb 2004 for the overall regional evolution process? And while you are at it # 65 “Balanced Communities,” 23 Aug 2005 which Jim Bacon’s header describes as “… Herewith is a primer on what they are and how to create them.”

EMR