A Marvelous Order

I've written in this space before about Jane Jacobs, the writer, activist and visionary whose work, including her seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, helped set in motion the revival of urban America that continues to this day. Less often have I menntinoned her chief nemesis, Robert Moses, perhaps as close to an oligarch as this country has ever produced. He was a man who wielded the kind of unchecked power that folks like the current president could only acheive in their most perverse dreams.

As the chief builder of the greater New York metropolitan area between the 1920s and the 70's, Moses held a number of positions as president or comissioner of several New York State authorities and commissions, holding many of those posts concurrently. Much of his rise to power came during the early years of the Great Depression where he was in the position, where others weren't, to set into motion great public works projects with the funding of federal relief projects such as the Works Progress Administration (the WPA). During that time, Moses was responsible for the creation of several of the recreational amenities that New Yorkers continue to enjoy including millions of acres of public parks and beaches, and hundreds of playgrounds in the city of New York. But what Moses is probably most remembered for today are the thousands of miles of bridges and highways that were built under his watch.

For a time, Moses could simply will his projects to completion as in addition to his vast political acumen, he was in lock step with the sentiment of the day that progress was the key to building a better world, and that new ways of doing things, were inevitably better than the old ways.

The conflict between Jacobs and Moses arose over Moses' proposal to decimate her neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, first with the southward extension of Fifth Avenue which would have bisected Washington Square Park, and then the building of the Lower Manhattan Expressway. The LOMEX would have connected the Williamsburgh and Manhattan Bridges which span the East River, with the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson, which connects New York City to New Jersey and all points west. The expressway would have levelled much of the Village, SoHo, Little Italy and the area now known as TriBecca not only with the roadway, but also the massive high rise apartment buildings that would have flanked it.

Now if you've ever braved New York's infamous crosstown traffic, (heck Jimmy Hendrix even wrote a song about it), trying to get from Brooklyn to New Jersey or vice versa thgough Lower Manhattan, you can appreciate the demand for such an expressway. On the other hand, if you've ever walked through the Village, one of the most urbane neighborhoods in the country, AND have experienced first hand the utter destruction an expressway brings to a neighborhood, you can understand the opposition to it.

Jacobs whose house was directly in the path of the proposed expressway, had already written Death and Life  which itself followed  Jacobs' long and distinguished career as a writer covering a number of subjects including architecture and urban planning. Her thoughts on the subject ran directly counter to the prevailing wind of the new urbanism promosted by a disparate lot from Frank Lloyd Wright, to LeCorbousier, to Robert Moses. Crossing such titans of the industry was no easy challenge, especially given the fact that Jacobs had no formal training in urban planning. Moses famously referred to Jacobs, who became the major thorn in his side, as "that housewife."

By taking on the elite city planners and politicians and eventaully winning the battle, Jacobs has been called David, to Moses' Goliath. On the surface, such a battle is almost operatic in scope. Enter composer Judd Greenstein who is currently hard at work completing an opera on that very subject called A Marvelous Order.

Here is the transcript of an NPR On The Media piece on Greenstein, the opera's librettist, Tracy K. Smith, Jacobs and Moses. In the interview of Greenstein, the composer admits that all opera composers, himself included, are in the myth making business.

But the real stoy is no myth. Jacobs, hardly in the role of the biblical David, was every bit Moses' equal and then some. Perhaps a more likely comparison for her is the character of the girl in Hans Christian Andersen's story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Jacobs understood that progress simply for the sake of progress led nowhere, or worse. She must have thought of urban planners of her day the way Nelson Algren felt about Chicagoans who

live their lives like a drunken 'L' rider; he may not know where he is going, but the sound of the wheels under his feet lets him know that he is going somewhere. 

By the time Moses and Jacobs were battling over the fate of Lower Manhattan, there had already been twenty years or so of lab tests of the new urbanism, and the results were less than promising. Cities all over the country were decimated by well intentioned projects in the name of progress. In central Paris, one of the few neighborhoods to not have been raped by Baron Haussmann's urban renewal project of the mid-nineteenth century, the lovely Marais, was alsmost destroyed with the intention of being replaced by dozens of Corbousian high rises  In New York City, the seed change away from progress at all costs came with the destruction of one of that city's most beloved landmarks, Pennsylvania Station. The McKim Mead and White masterpiece was replaced by the ultimate temple to banality, the current iteration of Madison Square Garden. That event more than any other served as the inspiration for that city's preservation movement. After that, bold new public works projects that sacrificed the city's soul were met with resistance.

By that time, Jane Jacobs' was more than a voice in the wilderness. Hers was the voice of a prophet. And Moses and the rest of the urban planners of his era who shared his vision of a bold and beautiful future of highrises wrapped by superhighways, were in reality, just like Anderson's emperor, altogether naked.

Drinking and Driving

Times have changed. In one of my favorite movies, Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, released one year after I was born, there is a memorable, at times hysterical scene involving driving while under the influence of alcohol.  It starts when our hero, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is kidnapped, having been mistaken for someone else. He is brought by two thugs to a huge mansion in suburban New York where the boss of the operation, a smuggler of state secrets (James Mason), is under the impression that Roger is a government agent on his trail. Having gotten no information out of Thornhill, the bad guys plan to dispose of him by filling him up with a fifth of bourbon, then placing him behind the wheel of an automobile headed in the direction of a cliff with a several foot drop into Long Island Sound. What they underestimate is Roger's keen sense of self-preservation, and a super-human tolerance for alcohol. In a later scene with a real G-man who intends to take advantage of Roger's accidental relationship with the bad guys, Roger reveals his modus operandi:

Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

Anyway, completely tanked but still with his wits about him, Roger with a bad case of the room zooms, somehow gains control of the car before it goes off the cliff, and takes us on hair-raising ride through the back roads of Long Island where he zigs and zags as best he can avoiding oncoming cars while at the same time trying to keep his eyes open and the car on the road. He's taken off to the hoosegow after he slams on the brakes to avoid a bicyclist in his path and is rear-ended by the cop on his tail. After spending the night in the pokey on the charge of drunk driving, he appears before a judge at a hearing accompanied by his lawyer and his mother, none of whom believe his far-fetched tale. Defending his innocence, he pledges to the judge, the police, and all within earshot to "get to the bottom of all this" with or without their help. Upon hearing this his wacky mother throws up her hands and admonishes Roger by saying: "Just pay the two dollars dear."

Twelve years after the movie was released, while the penalty for driving under the influence was more than two bucks, it was still little more than a slap on the wrist. I remember visiting my uncle's family about twenty miles from our home. Since my father came directly from work, my parents drove there separately. My dad could really put away the alcohol back then in his prime, but that evening he drank more than even he could handle and was visibly drunk. As there were only two drivers in our family at the time and absolutely no question that we would leave with as many cars as we arrived in, my drunk father drove home and I drew the short straw as the person who was to accompany him. I may have had more terrifying moments in my life, but I can't remember any. The trip may not have been as hair raising as Cary Grant's joy ride in the Hitchcock movie, but it was bad enough. The funny thing was, even though my dad was completely shit-faced, no one, not even my mother thought twice about sending us off into the night with no more than a giggle noting my dad's condition, and an ironic "drive carefully" to send us on our way. God certainly must have been looking out for us that evening because we somehow made it home without incident.

A dozen years later, DUI penalties were more than just a slap on the wrist. That was the era when thanks to groups like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), it became unfashionable to chuckle while putting a drunk friend or family member behind the wheel of a car. All that didn't prevent me on occasion from driving when I shouldn't have. One evening when I was on a softball team and the other team didn't show up for a game, our team put that extra two hours to good use by heading straight for the bar. With the head start, by the end of the evening we were all pretty wasted. It just so happened that I drove to work that day and wasn't about to keep my car in the garage overnight, so I drove home in a mild stupor.  Now my father was a very aggressive driver while sober, and even more so when he was drunk. Since I never shared my late father's sense of self-confidence, not by a long shot, I would by and large describe myself as a defensive driver, especially while shall we say, tipsy. That evening I planned my journey very carefully, hoping to minimize any chance of causing anyone harm or getting into trouble by choosing the road less traveled to get home. To this day I can remember practically every moment of that commute home, all two hours or so of what should have been a twenty minute trip, driving half the speed limit with my face about five inches from the steering wheel. My memory of that evening ends the minute I got home when I passed out on the floor.

Flash forward some thirty years to today where there is zero tolerance for drunk driving. A DUI conviction now can result in the indefinite suspension of one's driver's licence, serious time behind bars, and social ostracization. While all that should give pause to reasonable people before they drink and drive, there are still folks who throw all caution to the wind and get behind the wheel when they have no business to do so. According to MADD, that number is about 300,000 per day. Last Saturday night, a husband and wife were driving home to the Milwaukee area after attending a wedding in Chicago. As they were passing through Kenosha, little more than half way home, they were hit head on by a pickup truck going the wrong way on an interstate highway at an estimated speed of 100 miles per hour. The husband died instantly and his wife sustained very critical injuries, but not life threatening. Their two children fortunately were not with them at the time, they were informed that they would never see their father again by their uncles. My wife and I learned of the tragedy Sunday evening. The deceased was my wife's first cousin.

Moments before the accident, the driver of the pickup truck that killed a member of our family fled the police after being stopped, then continued driving south in the northbound lanes of the superhighway.

It's customary to use the word "allegedly" to modify the actions of someone involved in a criminal act who has yet to be convicted of a crime. That small courtesy is seldom given to drunk drivers. The news reports immediately told us that a witness to the accident who offered help to the injured, noticed that the cab of the pickup truck which struck my wife's cousin's car reeked of alcohol. It was also reported that the woman passenger in that vehicle told police that she and the driver had been drinking that night. You may draw your own conclusions but I'll just go out on a limb and say the guy behind the wheel who killed my wife's cousin was drunk.

If he lives, and at this point that's about a fifty-fifty proposition, he'll be in serious trouble. Beyond all the legal charges that will await him should he survive his injuries, if he has any conscience at all, he'll have to live with all the pain and suffering he caused so many people. Because of his stupidity, he'll have to live with the fact that a father will never get the chance to see his boys grow up; he'll never get to meet his grandchildren. Because of his recklessness, he'll have to live with the fact that the boy's mother in addition to fighting for her life through terrible pain, has lost her best friend and soul mate, and will have to raise her children without a father. Because of his criminal behavior, two boys have lost their dad at an age when they need him the most; the rest of his family has lost a loving brother, nephew, cousin and an uncle. Scores of folks have lost a dear friend and colleague, and a couple who got married last week in Chicago will forever be haunted by the fact that a tragedy befell two guests leaving their wedding. I could go on and on about the number of people who have been hit by this particular nightmare. The point of all this is to say that we forget how intricately all of us are connected, our actions not only define us, but other lives as well.

In Illinois the penalties for drunk driving are harsh; a first offense DUI conviction here results in a minimum of one year suspension of the driver's licence, a fine of up to $2,500, and up to one year in jail. Wisconsin's penalties are tough but not nearly as much as those in Illinois, which may explain why the Dairy State according to its own DOT web site, has the highest rate of drunken driving in the nation.

There are some who would argue that laws severely punishing drivers without exception caught driving above the legal limit of alcohol in their veins are unfair. They might argue that having an amount of alcohol above an arbitrary percentage, does not necessarily mean a person will be more likely to cause an accident than someone driving with other distractions, some of which are completely unavoidable. It's not even unreasonable to say that some people are better drivers while tipsy than others are stone sober. Taking away a person's ability to drive is often tantamount to taking away that person's livelihood. Incarceration causes irreparable harm to a reputation, and the fines add insult to injury. Besides, the tough laws already in place didn't prevent the Wisconsin driver from causing the deadly crash last Saturday. Some would argue draconian laws that take away people's rights, their liberty, and the ability to support themselves based on what is essentially a case of bad judgement, are simply bad, unreasonable, and ineffective laws.

I would counter with what should be obvious: driving a car is a privilege, not a right. Getting behind the wheel of a two thousand pound machine that is easily capable of speeds of well over one hundred MPH is a deadly serious proposition. Along with accepting that privilege comes a contract the driver makes with society, pledging to accept and uphold the rules and regulations placed upon all drivers, not just some. In other words those of us (like me) who foolishly believe we're good drunk drivers, don't live by a different set of rules than anybody else. Despite the terrible experience of our family this past week, tough drunk driving laws keep at least some drunks off the road and do in fact save lives. Of all the impairments and distractions that drivers face on a daily basis, drunk driving, (unless you're Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest), is entirely avoidable. Every driver knows the legal consequences of driving under the influence so there is simply no excuse beyond sheer stupidity to put oneself into the position of getting a DUI.

A more important detriment to driving under the influence than getting busted should be the thought of the terrible carnage of fatalities caused by drunk driving. According to MADD, around 10,000 people each year are killed by drunk drivers who account for one third of all traffic accidents in the United States. Just imagine, 10,000 deaths each year that could have easily been prevented if only the people who caused them had thought about the terrible consequences before drinking and driving. A sobering thought indeed.

As we have seen, we are all inexorably connected by our actions. Our cousin and his family were the victims last week. This week it may be a loved one of yours. The way I see it, supporting and abiding by the strict rules we have on the books regarding drinking and driving is a small price to pay, even if they save only one life.

Who knows, that life may be your own.


If you are so moved, the following is the address of a fund to help our cousin's wife and her two boys:

The Robert F. Miller Family Memorial Fund
Landmark Credit Union
2190 Wisconsin Ave. Grafton, WI 53024

Florence vs. Atlanta

Florence, left, and an Atlanta highway interchange compared in photos of the same scale

This comparison of two satellite photographs has been making the rounds over the past few years. It originally appeared here on a blog post written by Steve Mouzon. We see from the two photos that an unnamed highway interchange in Atlanta takes up roughly the same amount of space as the entire city of Florence.

Despite his blog's objectives spelled out in its title: Original Green: Common-Sense, Plain-Spoken Sustainability, Mouzon argues against the 20th/21st Century American paradigm of devoting so much space to the automobile in strictly economic terms:

Busy streets, for almost all of human history, created the greatest real estate value because they delivered customers and clients to the businesses operating there. This in turn cultivated the highest tax revenues in town, both from higher property taxes and from elevated sales taxes. But you can't set up shop on the side of an expressway.

In another blog post that revived the above photographs, Lloyd Alter writes this:

You could spend days walking the streets of Florence... and find three hundred and fifty thousand residents shopping, eating, selling wonderful leather goods, going to fabulous galleries and palaces and museums...
Because of the need for speed, Atlanta has a great big expensive hole the size of Florence that does very little beside getting a small fraction of Atlanta workers to their jobs a bit sooner, barring any accidents.

Compelling as these two photographs are, finding any real meaning behind them is not as easy as it might seem on the surface. With two entirely different cities built in different times in different cultures, you could spin this comparison any number of ways. Florence is the size it is precisely because the automobile was about 400 years from being invented during the Renaissance when the city took its current shape. Had the Tuscan city been planned in another technological era, Florence certainly would be a much different place. The same is true of Atlanta.

Perhaps the most prescient words I've ever read about the automobile came from the author Booth Tarkington in his 1918 novel, The Magnificent Ambersons. Responding to the comment, "Automobiles are a useless nuisance", the character Eugene Morgan, himself an early pioneer in the automobile industry, takes a philosophical view of his life's work:

I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization - that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure, But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace. I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of the automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can't have the immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may be that George is right, and that spiritual alteration will be bad for us. Perhaps, ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine, but would have to agree with him that automobiles had no business to be invented.

The urbanologist Jane Jacobs argued that it was not the automobile per se that altered civilization, but the way we designed our cities in order to accommodate it. The thriving street culture of Florence as seen in the photo and described by Lloyd Alter above, compared to the relative emptiness of area surrounding the Atlanta highway is a perfect illustration of her point. With the exception of the River Arno, one can explore on foot practically every nook and cranny of Florence as I can personally attest. I don't know Atlanta that well but I've certainly experienced similar landscapes as the one pictured on the right. Super-highways create no-man's lands of inhospitable landscapes divided by impenetrable borders. It's unlikely that anyone would choose to get from any given point A to point B in the area shown the photo on the right on foot as the journey would prove to be not only hazardous, but highly unsatisfying. Boring streets Jacobs argued, made for boring cities that people would ultimately move away from. Her prediction sadly became reality as we have seen time and time again in great cities across America.

The city of Florence today does not exclude cars, it just puts them in their place. On the other hand, Atlanta and similar cities, continue to put cars front and center.

I'll get on the bandwagon and spin this story in the direction of my own biases by using two instances that I've sited before, one personal, one taken from the news:

My parents retired to a community in greater Phoenix, another sprawling city where car is king. They had a very nice life and my wife and I greatly enjoyed our visits, in fact we were married there. My father's health eventually deteriorated and as my mother was caring for him in his final days, she was diagnosed with macular degeneration which rendered her legally blind, unable to drive. Not having something as basic as a grocery store closer than two miles from home, and no public transportation whatsoever, my fiercely independent mother could only rely on the kindness of her friends and family for so long. She ended up moving back to Chicago where at eighty-something she continues to live a very independent life, relying on public transportation to get her to the places too far away to walk. Ironically, "The Valley of the Sun", a region that draws retired people by the score, was unable to provide a sustainable life for her once she could no longer drive.

In Atlanta earlier this year, a mere two inches of snow completely incapacitated the city. Commuters were stranded in their cars for up to 24 hours as the city's three snow plows were no match for the unusual weather event. One only has to look at the two photographs above to understand why Atlanta was in such a sorry state. It might take an hour to transverse the distance from one end of the area represented by each photograph to the other on foot. Despite the two cities being somewhat comparable in population, that distance represents the entirety of Florence but only a small fraction of the average commute in Atlanta. I have no idea how well Florence is equipped to handle snow, but I'm sure two inches of the white stuff would hardly incapacitate a town where you can walk everywhere.

Time and time again we have seen how putting all of our eggs in the same technological basket is not a good idea. Technology is a wonderful thing, that is until it stops working as planned. Anyone who has gone through a power outage of any length of time can testify to that fact. The internal combustion engine and the automobile, great, earth shattering inventions as they may be, still have their limitations. The real question we must ask ourselves in the 21st century is this:

Are we to control our technology or are we going to let it control us?

Way to go Governor Walker

This article in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel slams the transportation priorities of the current administration up in the Badger State, claiming Wisconsin's ever diminishing funding for public transportation in favor of highway spending is hurting the state as young, educated individuals are increasingly looking to live in places that are: "more walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly communities where lifestyles are less dependent on driving." Consequently the folks who were enticed to Wisconsin by its excellent educational institutions, are looking elsewhere to live once they graduate.

Another article from Madison's Capital Times notes that Talgo, a train manufacturing company has shuttered its plant in Milwaukee as a result of Governor Scott Walker's refusal of 810 million dollars in federal money targeted toward high speed rail construction. According to the article:

Talgo is now suing the state for $65 million for the state's reneging on its Talgo contract, and Wisconsin has to foot the bill for a multimillion-dollar maintenance facility and handicap accessibility upgrade at the Milwaukee station, all of which would have been covered by the $810 million federal grant.

Not to say I told you so, but you know what?

I told you so.

A case for walking

Urban planner Jeff Speck has written a new book called Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet but here is a capsule review from the site Brain Pickings. Here is an interview with him from the blog DC.Streets.

Speck's views are nothing new, he is channelling the work of Jane Jacobs who wrote the groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities back in the early sixties. In Speck's words:

We’ve known for three decades how to make livable cities — after forgetting for four — yet we’ve somehow not been able to pull it off. Jane Jacobs, who wrote in 1960, won over the planners by 1980. But the planners have yet to win over the city.

Jacobs' startling idea was that cities as they had been built for millennia actually worked, and that two generations of "progressive" urban planning led to lifeless, boring cities. As Speck points out today, Jacobs' work turned out to be prophetic; fifty years after the publication of her book, people are finding old fashioned, big, congested, walkable cities very attractive places in which to live. In contrast, newer cities emphasizing open space and convenience built around the automobile are falling into disfavor. Yet we continue to build them.

Speck's argument is that while planners today do accept Jacobs' work, they continue to answer the demand to design cities to be the servant of the automobile rather than the other way around. The typical response in this country to complaints about bad traffic is to build more roads. And the inevitable result of more road construction is this: more people getting into their cars creating even more congestion. The solution to more congestion is, guess what, more roads.

Now take Chicago. Anyone who has lived here for a while, knows that driving in this city has progressively become more and more of a hassle in recent years. Congestion on the roads has gotten much worse not to mention that parking, especially in the Loop has become prohibitively expensive. When I drive I admit myself to cursing the bad condition of the roads, the seemingly endless construction delays, and the ridiculously expensive parking. Conventional wisdom might say this is a bad thing; the hassle factor keeps people away from the city. Adding traffic lanes to ease congestion and building more parking lots in the Loop would certainly reduce at least some of that hassle.

But not so fast. It is not necessary to drive in Chicago. This is one of the very few places to live in the United States where owning a car is not a prerequisite. True our public transportation system leaves much to be desired, but it is a functional system just the same that is light years ahead of those of most other cities in this country. What's more, there are transportation alternatives in Chicago that go beyond public transportation. Chicago remains a very walkable city and day by day strives to become more bike friendly.

Reducing the number of cars on the road seems to be the most reasonable solution to our traffic congestion problems. Other big cities around the world have recognized this and have proposed charging drivers a fee for the privilege of driving in their central business districts. Chicago seems to be doing it inadvertently. Bad planning and budget restraints have resulted in the crumbling infrastructure of our highways. Former mayor Richard M. Daley's sale of parking meter revenue to a private concern has come under a great deal of scrutiny, not the least of which is the fact that the company that now owns the right to charge us to park on the city's streets has continually raised their parking fees. "Unfair" cry the critics, including myself at times. But in reality, these cases of what seem to be bad policy, may in fact be working in our favor. If people insist on driving downtown, which they certainly continue to do, they must pay a price in both time and money. Those who don't care to pay that price, find a plethora of alternatives to get around town, including walking.

Building cities around the automobile creates an endless cycle of road construction, increased automobile usage, and congestion. Building cities around the pedestrian creates another cycle: as more people walk around the city, more amenities for them are created. The more amenities, the more vibrant and interesting the city becomes, which attracts more people. Speck's conclusion is that generalists such as mayors, who have a vision the direction the city should take are better to be in charge of urban planning rather than specialists like public works commissioners, who are more concerned with solving specific problems, such as traffic congestion.

Not surprisingly, Jeff Speck cites New York, San Francisco and Chicago as examples of vibrant, walkable cities in the U.S. that have a bright future. Whether by design or just dumb luck, we end up ahead in the long run by making driving less attractive.

In case you're interested, here's an interactive map of the United States that describes state by state how people commute to work. Not too many surprises.

In those days , they had time for everything...

...could be a comment heard today about life before the age of e-mail, the internet, and multitasking, back when people weren't teathered to their electronic devices and required to be accessible 24/7.

Isn't it ironic that the more time saving devices we have at our fingertips, the less time we seem to have at our disposal?

That sentiment is actually from a novel and later a classic movie, set at the turn of the last century. Its inspiration was not related to the computer obviously but the electric streetcar which replaced the horse drawn streetcar. Life it seems was a trifle slower in the pre-trolley days when the car pulled up to a house:

A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once, and wait for her while she shut the window, put on her hat and coat, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the "girl" what to have for dinner and came forth from the house. The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry on the part of the car: they were wont to expect as much for themselves on like occasion. 

In good weather the mule pulled the car a mile in a little less than twenty minutes, unless the stops were too long; but when the trolley-car came, doing its mile in five minutes and better, it would wait for nobody. Nor could its passengers have endured such a thing, because the faster they were carried, the less time they had to spare!

People have been grumbling about the "good old days" probably since the invention of the wheel, if not before.

The "good old days." Chicago Loop c.1900

The words are taken from the novel The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. It was written in 1918 and chroicles the life of once the most prominent family of an unnamed Midwestern town.* It was the story that Orson Wells chose to be the setting for his second feature film. Like Wells' first film Citizen Kane, the chief protagonist of The Magnificent Ambersons, George Amberson Minafer is a flawed individual, arrogant with a supreme sense of entitlement, who is perfectly unwilling to change along with the world around him. His stubborn attitude that, for a person of his status it was more worthwhile - to be rather than to do, made him ill suited for life in a time when his prestigious family name had lost its relevance.

George's nemesis, Eugene Morgan, was the father of George's on again off again girlfriend Lucy, but also an admirer of his widowed mother Isabel. George eventually learns what we already know, not only was the admiration mutual, but it was in fact older than George himself, and were it not for a youthful indiscretion, Eugene may very well have ended up George's father, and Lucy... well you can figure out the rest. The stuff for great melodrama to be sure but the story takes place during the period of the most radical change in the history of this country, and that turbulent era serves as the story behind the story.

Although the film and novel center around George and the self centered existence that leads to his eventual "come-upance", the most compelling character is Eugene. He is a member of the new breed of do'ers rather than be'ers, an inventor and early advocate of the automobile. While he is a lifelong friend of the Ambersons, his world and theirs collide as the progress he is in part responsible for, crushes the old way of life that sustained the family and their significance. Yet George is the only Amberson who is threatened by Eugene; by his ambition, his newfangled horseless carriage, his self-made success, and mostly by his intrusion into George's family. One evening at dinner at the Ambersons', George's grandfather and uncle engage Eugene in conversation about the growth due to all the new roads and how it has been negatively effecting property values in their part of town. Eugene assures them that it will only get worse, that roads will soon be built all the way to the edge of town and the roads already in town will be widened to accommodate the automobile. At that point, George blurts out:

Automobiles are a useless nuisance. They'll never amount to anything but a nuisance. They had no business to be invented.

George's grandfather in the book, his uncle in the movie , admonishes him for his impertinence. Seemingly unfazed, Eugene in a remarkably insightful monologue says this:

I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization - that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure, But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace. I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of the automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can't have the immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may be that George is right, and that spiritual alteration will be bad for us. Perhaps, ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine, but would have to agree with him that automobiles had no business to be invented.

Pretty glum words indeed, especially coming from one of the inventors of that infernal contraption.

Later in the story, George leaves for an extended trip to Europe. Upon his return five years later, he found that the familiar world he left behind, was gone forever. This is how Booth Tarkington describes George's town that had become a city upon his return:

He walked homeward slowly through what appeared to be the strange streets of a strange city... the streets were thunderous; a vast energy heaved under the universal coating of dinginess...All the people were soiled by the smoke-mist through which they hurried, under the heavy sky that hung close upon the new skyscrapers; and nearly all seemed harried by something impending.

That dinginess and harried nature of life in this new world that Tarkington describes, is associated by the new people in town, with well being and prosperity. As long as the factories and mills were belching out smoke, people were making money and all was well.

Perhaps this is the "spiritual alteration" that Eugene so prophetically alluded to in his words.

It's funny, if we were to take Eugene's cautionary statement and substitute the word computer for automobile, and digital age for gasoline engine, his comments would ring true in our day.

Being in the middle of the digital revolution, we still may not begin to understand the inward change it causes in our souls. One thing is certain, computers are here to stay and they have inexorably changed our lives.

For better and for worse.

After all, as Eugene said in the movie:

There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're not old, they're dead. There aren't any times but new times.

* It is said that Booth Tarkington based the unnamed Midwestern town that is the setting for The Magnificent Ambersons on his home town, Woodruff Place, Indiana, which today is a neighborhood of Indianapolis. For his part, Wells may have been influenced by the town of his birth, Kenosha, Wisconsin. In reality though, the town could be Anywhere, USA.

There ought to be a law

The man who bears a strong resemblance to a familiar Latin American dictator, emerges from the Presidential Palace in the fictional country of San Marcos to address his people:

"I am your new president." he says to an ecstatic crowd.

"From this day forward, the national language of San Marcos, will be Swedish."

"You will change your underwear once every hour, and you will wear your underwear on the outside, so we can check."

"All children in San Marcos under the age of 16, as of today will be 16."

I first saw Woody Allen's movie Bananas, not long after it was made forty years ago. That scene which still makes me chuckle after all these years, silly as it is, is useful in examining the nature of laws and how they are implemented.

I've been thinking about that subject since last week after watching the PBS documentary, Prohibition. I may not be the biggest Ken Burns fan, but I will say that he does a good job telling the story and presenting both sides. Viewers come away from the program understanding that although Prohibition in the United States was an unmitigated disaster, a total flop in terms of accomplishing its goals, there was a certain logic in the movement to ban booze. Its advocates, rather than being strictly religious zealots, actually came from diverse elements of society, and most of them had very good intentions. Prohibition in fact was seen as a progressive movement in many circles. Needless to say, alcohol when abused, causes tremendous suffering and hardship, not just to the abusers, but to those around them, as well as innocent bystanders. To solve the problem the theory went, why not make a law to get rid of the stuff altogether.

As everyone knows, banning alcohol did not end up solving the problem of alcohol abuse. While the total number of people who drank was slightly reduced during Prohibition, those who continued to imbibe, and there were a lot of them, drank more. The supply of alcohol may have been reduced, but the demand skyrocketed. As always, there were people who were more than happy to meet the demand, and they made a fortune selling illegal hootch. Organized crime flourished. Everything was turned upside down, industrious, honest people became criminals, and criminals became legitimate. Since a good portion of the country thought Prohibition was a joke, including most of the police, the law was unenforceable. Cynicism and disregard for law and law enforcement ruled the day, a situation that one could argue, exists to this day.

Arbitrary, frivolous laws like the proclamations of the fictional dictator of San Marcos, ill conceived, unenforceable laws, laws that that take away liberties that people once enjoyed, and laws that enforce one brand of morality over others, are counterproductive at best. Prohibition was all of that.

For much of the country, the era of Prohibition was a decade long drunken binge. It took the Great Depression, the repeal of the 18th Amendment, and ironically the restrictions that went along with legal booze, to sober the county up.

So have we learned anything from Prohibition? Well, people still flock to politicians who are more than willing to write laws that effect the behavior of other people. This "better life through legislation" mentality is not the domain of any one political ideology. Everyone likes freedom of speech, especially when it applies to themselves, but many wouldn't mind laws prohibiting certain speech of people with different opinions. So called "Pro Lifers" favor banning abortions but few seem prepared or interested to address the issue of how to enforce such a ban. Many folks support frivolous amendments to the constitution such as one defining marriage as a union specifically between a man and a woman, and an amendment that would ban flag burning.

And so it goes, it seems we just can't get enough of the idea that if we don't like something, make a law to get rid of it, and it will go away.

It just so happens that last week, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance that in a very small way, illustrates this point. On the surface, it seemed like a good idea, create a law that would forbid talking or texting on a cellphone while riding a bicycle. Quite honestly, I'm perplexed by people who use cellphones while riding their bikes. I think to myself: "if that conversation is so important, can't they just stop riding for a minute?"

I was prepared to accept this new law until I heard its sponsor, alderman Margaret Laurino speak about it on the radio. The interviewer asked what inspired her to come up with the law. She said that one of her constituents brought it to her attention and then she noticed some cyclists texting while riding. That's it, no studies, no data, not even rumors suggesting that texting and biking contributes to accidents, just an alderman's hunch that's it's not a good idea, simple common sense she said.

Well OK I can live with that, safety's important and it's hard to argue that using a cellphone while riding a bike is not the safest thing to do. On the other hand, there are more dangerous things that cyclists do all the time such as listening to music through headphones. I've been involved in several incidents and one accident involving people wearing headphones who turned into me because they couldn't hear me coming from behind. The alderman said she hoped bikers would hear her message on the redio while they were riding, presumably through their headphones. Could she possibly be that clueless?

Then she added that since it's illegal to text while driving, she wanted to "level the playing field" between drivers and bicyclists. I never realized the playing field was stacked so highly in favor of bikes, frankly I thought it was the other way around.

Where do I begin with that one? First of all, stand next to a city street on a normal day and count how many cars pass by before you see a single bicycle. I'd say that a very conservative estimate in Chicago would be ten cars to one bike on a good day to ride a bike. On a less than perfect day, the ratio of drivers to cyclists would be far higher. An average car weighs 2,000 pounds. A bike, including its rider might weigh around 200 lbs. An average automobile engine is rated between 100 and 150 horsepower, while an elite cyclist can generate about 1/4 horsepower, but only for a short amount of time. Speed limits on streets where you are likely to find bicycles range between 25 and 35 mph. Drivers routinely drive faster than the speed limit while most cyclists struggle to reach half that. Of course cars are capable of speeds well in excess of 100 mph.

If leveling the playing field were really an issue, it stands to reason that motorists would be the ones asked to sacrifice, not bicyclists. There is absolutely no comparison between the numbers, the space they take up, the speed, weight and the power of automobiles compared to bicycles. That's not to mention the relative safety afforded to the passengers in a car versus a completely vulnerable cyclist.

I've said it before in this space and I'll say it again, it's ridiculous to assume that cyclists should assume the same responsibility on our streets that motorists do. Cars and their drivers are responsible for wreaking far more havoc than bicyclists. Our lawmakers need to do better than perpetuate this "level the playing field" nonsense.

Alderman Laurino, the daughter of the old Machine alderman Anthony Laurino, clearly doesn't have a clue about traffic safety, at least as it relates to bicycles. Her new law will probably not cause any harm, but I doubt that it will be taken seriously, let alone save lives. Do we seriously want our over-extended police to be on the lookout for the dreaded bicycle texter? Motorists continue to talk and text on cell phones while driving even though it's illegal in Chicago, and it's hard to imagine that cyclists, (I'm guessing this new law is directed primarily at renegade bike messengers), will be any different.

This issue is certainly not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I haven't heard any opposition to it nor do I expect to see a phalanx of cyclists riding to the Daley Center, holding hands singing, or more appropriately texting "We Shall Not be Moved." But the law is unnecessary, unenforceable and arbitrary. There are many other dangerous things we could do on our bikes that are perfectly legal. How about a law banning juggling while riding a bike?

One of Ken Burns' trademarks is his use of the "talking head", the authority who appears on camera to help move the story along. Of all the talking heads in each documentary, there's usually one who I call the go to guy, the most colorful character, the expert of experts who comes up with the most memorable lines and often has the last word in each episode. Civil War historian Shelby Foote served that purpose as did baseball great Buck O'Neil in previous Burns' productions. In Prohibition the capo di tutti capi was New York journalist Pete Hamill. In his closing words of the film, Hamill spoke of the futility of laws that take things away from people. He said: "I haven't had a drink in thirty years and don't care if I have another one for as long as I live. But if the government were to tell me tomorrow: 'you can't have a drink', I'd head straight to the bar and order up a big martini."

That pretty much sums up my feeling about this new law. The thought never occurred to me to text while riding a bike, until now. That all has changed. In fact at this minute, as I write this post on my smart phone, I'm riding my bike down Michigan Avenue, with Pete Seeger blasting on my iPod.

So arrest me.

Too kind to the pedestrian?

The steam came out of my ears as I heard these words coming out of the mouth of the new radio talk guy from out of town: "We're a little bit too pedestrian friendly in Chicago." I came close to doing something I've never done before, calling up the yak-meister on the air and tell him he was full of crap. But as he was disposing of callers that disagreed with him, I saw little point.

His rant was inspired by the city's announcement about rethinking some pedestrian crosswalks in order to give people on foot more time to cross the street in a safer environment. This would include traffic lights at intersections turning red for 14 seconds every other minute for vehicular traffic in both directions, allowing pedestrians to cross the intersection in either direction, in some cases diagonally.

Radio-guy claimed that we already have too many laws that benefit the rights of pedestrians over those of drivers, "It seems that drivers have more headaches than pedestrians" he said.

Now I for one, don't see much problem with that.

One of the callers expressed frustration about having to stop at stop signs for pedestrian crosswalks in shopping mall parking lots, as it wastes so much gas. He then suggested they have stop signs for the pedestrians instead adding: "people should yield as much as cars."

Interesting choice of words there, it seems he's saying that cars should have the same rights as people. I didn't know that cars had any rights at all!

On the surface, the argument makes some sense; everybody should observe the rules of the road equally, that way, everybody will be safe.

Thinking about it for a second or two however, pedestrians, bicyclists, are motorists are definitely NOT equal.

In a grudge match between an automobile and a pedestrian, I'm taking the automobile every time. Between a car and a bike? Same result. Clearly in the battle over the rules of the road, the greater burden of responsibility has to lie with the person in control of the bigger, faster vehicle, in other words, the person capable of doing the most damage.

This bit of common sense has been with us ever since the invention of the automobile. In short, the pedestrian has the right of way. Apparently, the out of town yaptrap wants to change all that.

Were it not for automobiles and other motor vehicles, there would be no need for rules of the road. There are no legally binding rules of the sidewalk for pedestrians. In my entire life, I have never heard horrifying tales of accidents involving hit and run pedestrians.

On the very crowded lakefront bicycle path that I use daily, you have pedestrians, joggers, dog walkers, as well as people using any number modes of wheeled transportation devices, all traveling at different speeds and trajectories. Chaotic as it is, a few unwritten hints such as ride on the right, pass on the left are sufficient. Using these tips, most people get by quite nicely. That is not to say that accidents don't occur. Some of my worst bike accidents (a few of them admittedly my own fault) happened on the bike path. But with the exception of where the bike path crosses streets with automobile traffic, it's extremely rare that we hear of accidents resulting in serious injury or death.

Obviously the same cannot be said about our roads and highways. The good news is that from 2009 to 2010, the number of traffic fatalities in the U.S. dropped three percent. Unfortunately automobile accidents took the lives of more than 32,000 people in the United States last year. That is not to mention the incredible toll taken on the environment from automobiles and the apparatus needed to sustain them.

To prove he's not biased, the guy on the radio pointed out that he is not only a driver but also a pedestrian and a bicyclist. Well I do all three as well, in fact I listened to his rant while driving. Whenever I get behind the wheel, I adhere to the rules of the road in order to protect the safety of my fellow drivers as well as my own. I give bicyclists a wide berth and am always looking out for pedestrians, especially children darting unexpectedly into traffic. The knowledge that I could conceivably maim or kill another human being if I make even a small mistake while driving, gives me pause and is never far from my mind. I can't imagine how anyone driving a car can't have those same thoughts, but after many years of life experience, it is clear that many do not.

When I ride my bike I'm equally conscious of yielding the right of way to pedestrians, but I don't worry about being much threat to motorists or other bicyclists. And when I'm a pedestrian, I don't think that I'm much of a threat at all. How anyone can see the burden of responsibility for these three activities as equal is beyond my understanding.

That's not to say at all that I condone reckless behavior for pedestrians and bicyclists. Everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her own safety, not to mention the safety of others. In the case of an accident, it's of little consequence who is at fault if someone is seriously injured or killed.

Much of the grief coming from disgruntled drivers has to do with the undeniable fact that traffic is getting worse. But can anyone tell me with a straight face that the main reason for bad traffic is all the bikes and pedestrians on the road?

That's ridiculous of course, traffic is bad because of all the CARS on the road. I've linked to this page before and couldn't resist linking it again. Scroll down and check out the side by side pictures, one of forty people and forty cars taking up an entire city block, and the other of the same forty people and a city bus that can contain them all, obviously taking up far less space. Now picture those forty people without the bus, as pedestrians. Imagine how little space they take up. A motorist with any sense at all should be happy when people give up their cars in order to walk or ride their bikes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, no driver ever has this lament: "boy if only there were more cars on the road."

No I think the aggravation comes from something much deeper in the human psyche. It's the idea that somebody else is able to do something you're not, as if these whining drivers are saying to anybody who is willing to listen: "Gee mom, it's not fair, Jimmy gets to go through the red light and I don't."

Like any good mother, in the spirit of our new mayor the city is telling them: "It's OK Johnny, you'll still be able to get to where you're going before Jimmy does. Now have some milk and a cookie, go to bed, and shut the f--- up."

The solution to the Gulf oil spill..

... will not be found here.

Everyone seems to have a solution to what has become this nation's biggest catastrophe since 9-11. The remedies range from the simple minded to the insane to the downright idiotic. The dumbest idea I've heard to date comes from a talk radio host (the source of so many stupid ideas), who said that maybe every time an oil company has an oil spill, the government should as a punishment, force the company to lower the price of gas until they clean it up. Nice to the ears but do we really want to force the demand for oil up when it is the demand for oil itself that caused this problem in the first place?

The finger pointing has gotten so bad that I'm starting to walk around with my eyes covered. There certainly is plenty of blame to go around. The lion's share has got to be with BP who owns and operates the rig that is from latest estimates spewing one Exxon Valdez worth of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every five days. The company and its CEO Tony Hayward are deservedly favorite targets of the Left along with the administration of former President Bush.

The Right not surprisingly sees it differently. The fault they say lies squarely on the shoulders of President Obama. It is his oil spill they say, "his Katrina". Well guess what, both sides are right. The Bush administration certainly paved the way for disaster with their laissez-faire policy of letting the oil companies self regulate, thereby allowing the foxes guard the chicken coop if you will. But the Obama administration did little or nothing to change this atmosphere as spelled out in this article in Rolling Stone.

Of course all the finger pointing in the world will do absolutely nothing to stop the spill and even more significantly, prevent these tragedies in the future. If all of us were sincere in looking for the real culprit, if we truly cared to find the people who could make a real impact on the enviroment, all we would have to do is find a mirror. It is our own insatiable appetite for energy that has created the worst environmental disasters of the last two hundred years.

Yes, all of us are to blame. As anyone who has ever experienced a long term power outage knows, our dependence on energy is staggering. Normal life grinds to a standstill when our lights go out. No light to read by, no tv, radio, computer or fan, not to mention air conditioner, you can't open the fridge unless you want all your food to spoil. Our very existence is tested. Unless you of I live as survivalists up in the nether reaches of Michigan or Montana, raising our own food, building our own shelter, commuting on foot over unpaved trails we blazed ourselves by hand, you and I must claim some share of the responsibility for this crisis.

"We have to do something" has been the cry heard around the globe. One of the popular feel good movements is the one to boycott BP. But how will putting BP out of business as many have suggested, help solve the oil spill? Who will be left to clean up the mess after there's no more BP? Not to mention the terrible blow to the world economy, yes including our own if BP were to go under.

Of course BP will not go out of business simply by us buying gas at stations that don't sport the BP logo. The only people that a boycott will effect are the people who run those stations, people in our communities who need their jobs as much as we need ours.

Despite the global awareness of the perils of dependence on oil over the past forty years at least, our demand increases yearly. During the Seventies when Arab nations in the Middle East cut off the flow of oil, we learned difficult lessons about gas shortages. Gas prices skyrocketed, there were tremendous lines at filling stations, and gas rationing was introduced in some states. American cars that were once built like ships, became smaller and more fuel efficient. President Carter appeared from the White House wearing a cardigan sweater making the case that we turn down our thermostats and learn to live without, if only just a little. He was a supporter of alternative energy sources and went so far as to install solar panels on the roof of the White House.

Then the crisis eased up and gas prices leveled off, not to increase significantly in 35 years, in fact gas prices decreased if you factor inflation. Detroit didn't go back to the ship sized cars but came up with the SUV which guzzled gas with just as much relish. President Carter lost his re-election bid in part because of his suggestion that we live smaller than we had in the past. You can guess what happened to those solar panels. We went to living just as we had before.

The problem is, we want a strong economy, freedom to move about in our cars, use our air conditioners, hair dryers, dish washers, etc. We want to live far from the grind of the big city, in the relative peace and tranquility of the suburbs and beyond. We want cheap energy, and we want clean air and water.

Unfortunately, these things are mutually exclusive. Oil is simply harder and harder to get to as we've used up all of the easy sources. Companies are going to have to drill ever deeper to get to that black gold. The effort is going to be expensive and fraught with great risk to our environment.

If we want to do something truly meaningful to help prevent further catastrophes, we as a society must learn to change the way we live and build our communities. Despite forty years of awareness of not only of the finite supply of crude oil, but its deleterious effect on the environment, we continue to build communities that are entirely dependent on the automobile. This has to change.

My own experience bears this out. In the mid-nineties, my parents retired to the Phoenix area. As anyone who has ever flown into Sky Harbor Airport knows, the most significant land masses in that sprawling urban/suburban area are the lush green fairways and greens of golf courses markedly contrasting with the muted greens and browns of ever shrinking natural environment. The other unmistakable feature of the area are the expanding concrete ribbons of highways. Phoenix is enormous in land area and an average commute, at least in my mother's case, was about 45 miles each way. Public transportation does exist in the form of limited bus service. Ever take a city bus 45 miles? Needless to say, the automobile is the only way to get around the Valley of the Sun.

The real fallacy is that Phoenix like so many other regions of the Sun Belt is a very attractive place to retire as my parents did. The problem is, as people get older, their facilities begin to diminish. My father needed heart valve surgery in a hospital of course 45 miles from their house. At the very same time, my mother was diagnosed with macular degeneration which rendered her legally blind. Yet she was still driving the 45 miles to and from the hospital during the vigil with my father who never recovered from his surgery. After my father's death, my mother had to give up driving which meant that she was essentially stranded in her own home. She fortunately had friends who were very generous and willing to go out of their way to take her anywhere she wanted to go. But that was not her style so she moved backed to Chicago where she continues to this day to live quite independently on her own, dependent mostly on her two feet and the CTA.

My question is what do all the people in Phoenix (or comparable place) who do not have the gumption to move to a walkable, public transit friendly city do, once they cannot drive? Aside from the obvious lack of foresight on the part of planners is the fact that the Phoenix area is an environmental disaster. In addition to all those golf courses are lawns that people transplanted from more temperate climates seem to need. All this grass requires a tremendous amount of water in the middle of a desert.

As Phoenix is in a valley, pollution from all the vehicles typically creates a shroud of smog that is contained over the city.

All of this is contributing to climate change, no longer can a Phoenician retort, "but it's a dry heat" as humidity levels are slowly increasing.

The greatest tragedy of all is the fact that Phoenix sits in the midst of one of the most magnificent ecosystems on the planet, the Sonoran Desert which contains dozens of species of plants and animals that are entirely unique to the region. The encroachment on the desert due to urban sprawl, make the future of this truly spectacular place uncertain.

I single out Phoenix only because I know it first hand. In fact, in terms of urban planning in the United States over the past several decades, the Phoenix area is the rule, not the exception.

Phoenix and cities like it, i.e; sprawling, low population density urban-suburban areas that are designed to be entirely dependent on the automobile are the paradigm of old, failed systems of urban planning. If we are going to move ahead and create a world fit for our children and their children to live in, we must, like my mother, rethink our values and our lifestyles.

Big, densely populated, walkable cities with good public transportation systems aren't quite so old fashioned anymore. The future of cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to name a few, perhaps isn't quite so bleak after all.