In my post on the Law of Transportation Inertia (people in cars tend to stay in cars), Joel Azumah captured the thinking of many transit planners when he commented, "I love park-and-rides. They aggregate commuters that want a better quality of life." Joel may not have a formal degree in transit planning, but as one of the most innovative transit providers in the country I would say he is certainly doing transit planning. I disagree with his statement here, but I can understand how he gets to it.
By saying that suburban drivers are "commuters that want a better quality of life," he is channeling another Joel - Joel Kotkin. The idea that suburban park-and-rides are anything but a necessary evil is permeated with Kotkinist ideas: the suburbs offer better quality of life than the cities, the suburbs are the dynamic future, the car brings freedom. Most of all, Americans want the suburbs, they want to drive.
Of course, I've got a lot of problems with Kotkinism, mostly because it's incompatible with my goals. Other transit advocates may have less of a problem, maybe because they have different goals, because they know something I don't, because I know something they don't, or because they haven't thought things through.
A Kotkinist transit planner believes that transit is good, but so are cars. Any government action that makes it harder to drive is social engineering and must be avoided. Thus, the Kotkinist transit planner's job is to allow the suburban driver to partake of the benefits of transit, without challenging his or her suburban lifestyle in any way.
While people like Joel Azumah actively believe that transit is compatible with sprawl, others may adopt this kind of Kotkinism as a purely practical stance. Someone who believes in transit may go along with the cars because they feel that any transit is better than no transit, and maybe that the cycle will take care of the cars eventually. A hardcore Kotkinist may go along with the transit to keep the masses quiet and to co-opt the transit advocates.
Showing posts with label Kotkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kotkin. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Saturday, October 9, 2010
The failure of the right
The current craziness that has come out of Chris Christie's office recently, and the future craziness promised by New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, have shown that the American right is not a reliable source support for transit. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is.
I'm not a conservative, but I think there's a coherent ideological argument for transit on conservative and libertarian principles, and I appreciate this argument. It goes something like this:
In the past, private companies ran the trains, interurbans, trolleys and buses. They were usually able to make a profit providing freedom and personal mobility to people of all ages and income levels. Then the government interfered in the market, forcing operators to charge fares that were too low, and subsidizing roads, garages and oil so that private cars had an unfair advantage. The private operators went out of business, and since then a skeleton transit system has been operated by the government at great public expense.
Government subsidy of driving has also destroyed our traditional small towns and cities, leaving hard-working families with a difficult choice between long drives and a gentrified urban lifestyle surrounded by intellectuals and criminals.
A conservative solution would gradually phase out driving subsidies and allow entrepreneurs to start new bus and train services. As publicly-owned transit routes become more profitable, they could be sold off to the highest bidder.
Some routes will have great difficulty becoming profitable, but they could eventually be run by charity nonprofits, for those conservatives who are completely opposed to public transit. Some will suffer, but the usual libertarian-conservative arguments apply.
There are many libertarians and conservatives who think along those lines. They tend to have difficulty finding conservative politicians who share these leanings, though. Most conservatives tend to defend their big-government agendas with one of the following lies:
1. The Wendell Cox Closed System. Roads are all paid for by drivers, in the form of "user fees" like gas taxes and tolls. Not many people will actually discover the number of local and state roads that are paid for with general property, sales or income taxes.
2. The Joel Kotkin Real Americans. It's okay for government to spend money on things Real Americans want, and they want roads, cars and sprawl. This conveniently ignores the fact that "Real Americans" often change what they want depending on what they think will bring them the most happiness. It also ignores the frequent adjustment of the category of "Real Americans" to exclude those who decide they don't want roads, cars or sprawl. This is a special case of the more general Real Americans argument beloved by conservatives, notably Sarah Palin.
3. The Randal O'Toole Transit Socialism. Transit involves people getting close to each other, which is against American rugged individualism, and therefore it is an appropriate use of government funds to defend us against the commies. Somehow this is not a problem when people get close to each other on airplanes, in spectator sports arenas, or in shopping malls. Getting around on foot or by bicycle also somehow doesn't make you a rugged individualist, just a weirdo.
These patently false excuses for not supporting transit make it clear that these conservatives are more interested in defending their unsustainable transportation and living habits than in doing the best to ensure that their descendants will live in health and comfort.
I'm not a conservative, but I think there's a coherent ideological argument for transit on conservative and libertarian principles, and I appreciate this argument. It goes something like this:
In the past, private companies ran the trains, interurbans, trolleys and buses. They were usually able to make a profit providing freedom and personal mobility to people of all ages and income levels. Then the government interfered in the market, forcing operators to charge fares that were too low, and subsidizing roads, garages and oil so that private cars had an unfair advantage. The private operators went out of business, and since then a skeleton transit system has been operated by the government at great public expense.
Government subsidy of driving has also destroyed our traditional small towns and cities, leaving hard-working families with a difficult choice between long drives and a gentrified urban lifestyle surrounded by intellectuals and criminals.
A conservative solution would gradually phase out driving subsidies and allow entrepreneurs to start new bus and train services. As publicly-owned transit routes become more profitable, they could be sold off to the highest bidder.
Some routes will have great difficulty becoming profitable, but they could eventually be run by charity nonprofits, for those conservatives who are completely opposed to public transit. Some will suffer, but the usual libertarian-conservative arguments apply.
There are many libertarians and conservatives who think along those lines. They tend to have difficulty finding conservative politicians who share these leanings, though. Most conservatives tend to defend their big-government agendas with one of the following lies:
1. The Wendell Cox Closed System. Roads are all paid for by drivers, in the form of "user fees" like gas taxes and tolls. Not many people will actually discover the number of local and state roads that are paid for with general property, sales or income taxes.
2. The Joel Kotkin Real Americans. It's okay for government to spend money on things Real Americans want, and they want roads, cars and sprawl. This conveniently ignores the fact that "Real Americans" often change what they want depending on what they think will bring them the most happiness. It also ignores the frequent adjustment of the category of "Real Americans" to exclude those who decide they don't want roads, cars or sprawl. This is a special case of the more general Real Americans argument beloved by conservatives, notably Sarah Palin.
3. The Randal O'Toole Transit Socialism. Transit involves people getting close to each other, which is against American rugged individualism, and therefore it is an appropriate use of government funds to defend us against the commies. Somehow this is not a problem when people get close to each other on airplanes, in spectator sports arenas, or in shopping malls. Getting around on foot or by bicycle also somehow doesn't make you a rugged individualist, just a weirdo.
These patently false excuses for not supporting transit make it clear that these conservatives are more interested in defending their unsustainable transportation and living habits than in doing the best to ensure that their descendants will live in health and comfort.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
It still has to be transit-oriented
Planetizen links to a post by Chuck Wolfe that synthesizes recent discussions by Jason King on the rise of "urbanism," Roger Lewis questioning "transit-oriented development," and Liz Dunn on supplementing WalkScore with a "JaneScore." Wolfe puts it all together to come up with "urbandwidth," which is just an awful, horrible word.
I'm trying to figure out just what's so awful about "urbandwidth." I think it's partly the stress mismatch that screams, "I'm a naive neologism!" Combine URBan with BANDwidth and you get the URB clashing with the BAND and you don't know which to stress. Is it some kind of ur-bandwidth, the rate at which Abraham received information? What is "bandwidth" doing in there, anyway? Is Wolfe arguing that information access is the critical measure of the value of a society? If so, why?
King is certainly right that people are using - and modifying - the word "urbanism" in all kinds of ways now, and that's good. I think that Dunn is right about WalkScore not telling you everything you need to know. It tells you about the availability of walking routes to important destinations, but it says nothing about their value, amenities or glamour. Lewis is also right that walkability is important.
There's more to livability than urbanism, though, and Lewis is quite wrong when it comes to discounting transportation-oriented development. I'll start with the "urbanism" issue. I've lived in cities for most of my life, and I love them. I don't believe that it's sustainable for most of the population to live in small towns or suburban sprawl, much less in individual houses in the middle of nowhere, even if that's what they say they want.
I do believe that there is room for some diversity in living styles. No matter how many people live in cities, there will still be some areas that we would consider "country" or even suburban. We can do that in a sustainable way. The key is getting people away from car-dependence, and that means high local density even in a context of low global density: suburbs built around streetcars and commuter rail, and country towns and villages built around train stations and bus stops.
There have been copycat movements for "new suburbanism" and "new ruralism" (PDF). As you would expect from something promoted by Joel Kotkin and Randal O'Toole, "new suburbanism" comes with boatloads of sneering populism and misinformation about cars and the desires of so-called real people. "New ruralism" started as a marketing term for a particular kind of retirement community, but at least it's not divisively attacking latte-sipping strawmen.
I agree that the term "transit-oriented development" is awkward, and I would be happy to drop it and "urbanist," but I can't get completely behind Lewis's walkability. There's no question that walkability is essential, but honestly I take it for granted. It's just the natural way of things, and any built environment that can't be walked in is a sick system. I think that if people manage to see their environment from outside the sick system they realize that, but I don't see any way to convince them other than by showing them. A campaign for walkable neighborhoods seems like a campaign for edible food or breathable air, but then again...
The problem with focusing so much on walkability is that sometimes people do need to go beyond walking distance. If someone lives in a walkable rural village, they can visit their friends, pick up the mail and get a pound of salami, all on foot, but the village probably can't support a clothing store. If someone lives in a walkable suburb with all their daily needs plus a bookstore, a movie theater, some restaurants and a few boutiques, sometimes they want to go to a poetry reading or listen to some reggae. Even in Greenwich Village, where you can be within a short walk of a mind-boggling smorgasbord of dining, shopping, work and entertainment, sometimes you want to go to, say, Carnegie Hall or the Museum of Natural History, or even to Bear Mountain, and you want to get there faster than you can walk.
Bicycles can get you a bit beyond the village: our rural resident can bike to the big town and buy a skirt, our suburbanite can get to the reggae club, and our New Yorker can go anywhere in the city and suburbs. But if the rural resident wants to go to a poetry reading, the suburbanite to a museum, and the urban resident wants to visit another city, it's a bit too far to bike.
Finally, it's great when there are good jobs within walking or bicycling distance, but often times that's not the case, especially for people with relatively specialized occupations. Some jobs involve lots of travel over wide distances, as well.
For everything like that, there's transit. If you focus exclusively on walkability and don't provide transit, there are governments and corporations that are providing all kinds of incentives for people to get to those places by car. Sure, in developing countries and in past centuries people have walked for days to get places, but when the most convenient option is a car, most people will use it.
Living without cars is necessary to sustain our environment. Walkability is necessary for car-free living, but it is not sufficient. We need transit-oriented development. If you don't like the name, feel free to come up with a better one, but you can't get enough people out of their cars without transit.
I'm trying to figure out just what's so awful about "urbandwidth." I think it's partly the stress mismatch that screams, "I'm a naive neologism!" Combine URBan with BANDwidth and you get the URB clashing with the BAND and you don't know which to stress. Is it some kind of ur-bandwidth, the rate at which Abraham received information? What is "bandwidth" doing in there, anyway? Is Wolfe arguing that information access is the critical measure of the value of a society? If so, why?
King is certainly right that people are using - and modifying - the word "urbanism" in all kinds of ways now, and that's good. I think that Dunn is right about WalkScore not telling you everything you need to know. It tells you about the availability of walking routes to important destinations, but it says nothing about their value, amenities or glamour. Lewis is also right that walkability is important.
There's more to livability than urbanism, though, and Lewis is quite wrong when it comes to discounting transportation-oriented development. I'll start with the "urbanism" issue. I've lived in cities for most of my life, and I love them. I don't believe that it's sustainable for most of the population to live in small towns or suburban sprawl, much less in individual houses in the middle of nowhere, even if that's what they say they want.
I do believe that there is room for some diversity in living styles. No matter how many people live in cities, there will still be some areas that we would consider "country" or even suburban. We can do that in a sustainable way. The key is getting people away from car-dependence, and that means high local density even in a context of low global density: suburbs built around streetcars and commuter rail, and country towns and villages built around train stations and bus stops.
There have been copycat movements for "new suburbanism" and "new ruralism" (PDF). As you would expect from something promoted by Joel Kotkin and Randal O'Toole, "new suburbanism" comes with boatloads of sneering populism and misinformation about cars and the desires of so-called real people. "New ruralism" started as a marketing term for a particular kind of retirement community, but at least it's not divisively attacking latte-sipping strawmen.
I agree that the term "transit-oriented development" is awkward, and I would be happy to drop it and "urbanist," but I can't get completely behind Lewis's walkability. There's no question that walkability is essential, but honestly I take it for granted. It's just the natural way of things, and any built environment that can't be walked in is a sick system. I think that if people manage to see their environment from outside the sick system they realize that, but I don't see any way to convince them other than by showing them. A campaign for walkable neighborhoods seems like a campaign for edible food or breathable air, but then again...
The problem with focusing so much on walkability is that sometimes people do need to go beyond walking distance. If someone lives in a walkable rural village, they can visit their friends, pick up the mail and get a pound of salami, all on foot, but the village probably can't support a clothing store. If someone lives in a walkable suburb with all their daily needs plus a bookstore, a movie theater, some restaurants and a few boutiques, sometimes they want to go to a poetry reading or listen to some reggae. Even in Greenwich Village, where you can be within a short walk of a mind-boggling smorgasbord of dining, shopping, work and entertainment, sometimes you want to go to, say, Carnegie Hall or the Museum of Natural History, or even to Bear Mountain, and you want to get there faster than you can walk.
Bicycles can get you a bit beyond the village: our rural resident can bike to the big town and buy a skirt, our suburbanite can get to the reggae club, and our New Yorker can go anywhere in the city and suburbs. But if the rural resident wants to go to a poetry reading, the suburbanite to a museum, and the urban resident wants to visit another city, it's a bit too far to bike.
Finally, it's great when there are good jobs within walking or bicycling distance, but often times that's not the case, especially for people with relatively specialized occupations. Some jobs involve lots of travel over wide distances, as well.
For everything like that, there's transit. If you focus exclusively on walkability and don't provide transit, there are governments and corporations that are providing all kinds of incentives for people to get to those places by car. Sure, in developing countries and in past centuries people have walked for days to get places, but when the most convenient option is a car, most people will use it.
Living without cars is necessary to sustain our environment. Walkability is necessary for car-free living, but it is not sufficient. We need transit-oriented development. If you don't like the name, feel free to come up with a better one, but you can't get enough people out of their cars without transit.
Monday, April 12, 2010
What people want
In my last post, I critiqued the grandiosity inherent in Joel Kotkin and friends' insistence that the Will of the People must be observed. People want big houses and they want to drive to them, Kotkin repeats. Anyone who suggests that "you can't have everything" is an out-of-touch elitist, forcing the People into their mold.
As I wrote, I believe that people really do want big houses and cars, and the roads to drive the cars to those houses. I do too. But I want all kinds of other things, many of which conflict with those desires. I contradict myself. I contain multitudes. We all do.
The survey and market data that Kotkin relies on for his assertions unquestionably show a strong desire for big houses and cars. But there is no effort to figure out whether a given person wants a big house for the extra room, or as a status symbol, or to reduce their stress. If they want a car, do they want it to pick up chicks, or to get to work, or to get to remote trailheads?
These questions are critical. If someone wants a house for the extra room, they won't be happy unless they get the extra room, but they might be satisfied with a really big apartment. If they want it for a status symbol, they might be satisfied with a high-rise apartment. If they want it to reduce their stress, they might be satisfied renting a storage unit, getting a massage, or adopting a voluntary simplicity ethic. Similarly, if they want a car to get chicks, they might be satisfied with a nice suit or some jewelry. If they want it to get to work, adequate transit should be plenty. If they want to go hiking, a Zipcar or even a bus might work.
Kotkin and friends also don't give people credit for contradictory desires. If someone wants both a big house and a position at the center of the urban gallery scene, wouldn't they be just as happy with a big loft in Bushwick as with a big house in Cold Spring Harbor? If they want to drive, but also want to be able to pick up groceries near their home, wouldn't they be happy living above a supermarket? It all depends on the relative strength of those desires.
We get none of this discussion from Kotkin, Cox, Stossel or any of the others. Their world is divided into the Elites, some of whom want to live in apartments and take transit or ride bikes, and the People, who never want anything other than bigger and bigger houses, properties and cars. They want these things because it is natural to want them, and the Elites don't want them because - well, we must be unnatural.
There is no consideration for the possibility that the desires for bigger houses, properties and cars may stem from some other underlying desires and be satisfied in some other way. There is no acknowledgment of the fact that a single person may simultaneously want a country house and an urban apartment, a long driveway and a short walk to the pub, and that everyone makes trade-offs in life.
Here's one of the many things that I probably didn't come up with myself, but I can't remember who I heard it from. Superficial compromise, like King Solomon's proposal to split the baby in half, will often satisfy nobody. The art of true compromise requires looking beyond people's stated wants and needs and discerning their underlying desires. By doing that it is much easier to find a solution that will satisfy everyone.
As I wrote, I believe that people really do want big houses and cars, and the roads to drive the cars to those houses. I do too. But I want all kinds of other things, many of which conflict with those desires. I contradict myself. I contain multitudes. We all do.
The survey and market data that Kotkin relies on for his assertions unquestionably show a strong desire for big houses and cars. But there is no effort to figure out whether a given person wants a big house for the extra room, or as a status symbol, or to reduce their stress. If they want a car, do they want it to pick up chicks, or to get to work, or to get to remote trailheads?
These questions are critical. If someone wants a house for the extra room, they won't be happy unless they get the extra room, but they might be satisfied with a really big apartment. If they want it for a status symbol, they might be satisfied with a high-rise apartment. If they want it to reduce their stress, they might be satisfied renting a storage unit, getting a massage, or adopting a voluntary simplicity ethic. Similarly, if they want a car to get chicks, they might be satisfied with a nice suit or some jewelry. If they want it to get to work, adequate transit should be plenty. If they want to go hiking, a Zipcar or even a bus might work.
Kotkin and friends also don't give people credit for contradictory desires. If someone wants both a big house and a position at the center of the urban gallery scene, wouldn't they be just as happy with a big loft in Bushwick as with a big house in Cold Spring Harbor? If they want to drive, but also want to be able to pick up groceries near their home, wouldn't they be happy living above a supermarket? It all depends on the relative strength of those desires.
We get none of this discussion from Kotkin, Cox, Stossel or any of the others. Their world is divided into the Elites, some of whom want to live in apartments and take transit or ride bikes, and the People, who never want anything other than bigger and bigger houses, properties and cars. They want these things because it is natural to want them, and the Elites don't want them because - well, we must be unnatural.
There is no consideration for the possibility that the desires for bigger houses, properties and cars may stem from some other underlying desires and be satisfied in some other way. There is no acknowledgment of the fact that a single person may simultaneously want a country house and an urban apartment, a long driveway and a short walk to the pub, and that everyone makes trade-offs in life.
Here's one of the many things that I probably didn't come up with myself, but I can't remember who I heard it from. Superficial compromise, like King Solomon's proposal to split the baby in half, will often satisfy nobody. The art of true compromise requires looking beyond people's stated wants and needs and discerning their underlying desires. By doing that it is much easier to find a solution that will satisfy everyone.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Giving the people what they want
While I really don't want to encourage Ian Bicking and his new friend Adam Schildge to continue insulting and patronizing me in the comments, they do help move the discussion along by repeating Joel Kotkin's more annoying talking points. So now that I've dealt with "the independence of cars" and "you're anti-suburb," let's move on to "what the people want." And here's hoping that they'll comment with a bit less judgment and contempt, and a bit more benefit of the doubt.
Ian writes, "Joel Kotkin has a certain advantage: what he's saying has empirical backing. There are real desires (for home ownership, for the independence of a car) that are widely expressed in our country." Adam writes, "Many people do not enjoy the benefits of dense urban living because they may prefer to have more personal space and the independence afforded by a car for occasional trips." Kotkin himself writes things like, "It's widely understood there that many people move to places like Dallas, whether in closer areas or exurbs, largely to purchase affordable single-family homes." And of course Wendell Cox writes, "Americans, like people all over the world, prefer to live in single-family homes and like to have a little land they can call their own for gardening, entertainment, and play areas."
I'm well aware that many people desire larger homes and land. I myself am one of those people; I would love to have a large, sprawling old Victorian with a forest behind it where my son can run wild. I would also like to have a condo with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. And no commute. And I would like to eat nothing but Oreos, bacon and ice cream for the rest of my life and wash it down with beer and Coca-Cola, and I want to be slim and strong. I would like to have Love Hewitt available to satisfy my every desire, but not when I want to spend quality time with my wife. I want to be President and an inventor and an astronaut and a Solid Gold dancer.
Everyone has desires. Many of those desires conflict with one another. Nobody has enough time, enough space or enough money to fulfill all their desires. Not even Donald Trump - does he look like it? That's just the way the world is, and anyone who tells you that you can have everything you want is either a con artist or a nut or both.
That's just one person. When you put a bunch of people together, their desires will conflict. Some are in direct conflict, some are in competition for scarce resources. Something's gotta go. Eight billion people just can't have everything they want.
Jim Kunstler tried to say something similar to John Stossel and got attacked for it. That's what happens when someone tries to be the adult in the room and step out of fantasyland.
Kotkin, Cox, Stossel and friends - including Chris Christie - are like those fuckers who put out bread crumbs for the pigeons. Look at me, the great caretaker, saving the birds from starvation! But do you ever see them washing the pigeon shit off the sidewalk? Do they do anything to ensure that the birds are protected from the consequences of overpopulation? Of course not. All they see is their own role in giving the birds what they want.
Ian writes, "Joel Kotkin has a certain advantage: what he's saying has empirical backing. There are real desires (for home ownership, for the independence of a car) that are widely expressed in our country." Adam writes, "Many people do not enjoy the benefits of dense urban living because they may prefer to have more personal space and the independence afforded by a car for occasional trips." Kotkin himself writes things like, "It's widely understood there that many people move to places like Dallas, whether in closer areas or exurbs, largely to purchase affordable single-family homes." And of course Wendell Cox writes, "Americans, like people all over the world, prefer to live in single-family homes and like to have a little land they can call their own for gardening, entertainment, and play areas."
I'm well aware that many people desire larger homes and land. I myself am one of those people; I would love to have a large, sprawling old Victorian with a forest behind it where my son can run wild. I would also like to have a condo with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. And no commute. And I would like to eat nothing but Oreos, bacon and ice cream for the rest of my life and wash it down with beer and Coca-Cola, and I want to be slim and strong. I would like to have Love Hewitt available to satisfy my every desire, but not when I want to spend quality time with my wife. I want to be President and an inventor and an astronaut and a Solid Gold dancer.
Everyone has desires. Many of those desires conflict with one another. Nobody has enough time, enough space or enough money to fulfill all their desires. Not even Donald Trump - does he look like it? That's just the way the world is, and anyone who tells you that you can have everything you want is either a con artist or a nut or both.
That's just one person. When you put a bunch of people together, their desires will conflict. Some are in direct conflict, some are in competition for scarce resources. Something's gotta go. Eight billion people just can't have everything they want.
Jim Kunstler tried to say something similar to John Stossel and got attacked for it. That's what happens when someone tries to be the adult in the room and step out of fantasyland.
Kotkin, Cox, Stossel and friends - including Chris Christie - are like those fuckers who put out bread crumbs for the pigeons. Look at me, the great caretaker, saving the birds from starvation! But do you ever see them washing the pigeon shit off the sidewalk? Do they do anything to ensure that the birds are protected from the consequences of overpopulation? Of course not. All they see is their own role in giving the birds what they want.
Monday, March 22, 2010
What's driving Joel Kotkin?
A common reaction that transit advocates have to Joel Kotkin - and also to the arguments by Wendell Cox and friends that use liberal language - is bewilderment. How can you call me elitist? I'm fighting for transit, which helps poor people! I'm not part of the elite, I take the subway and ride a bicycle!
It's really tricky to figure out what people's real motives are, and certainly Kotkin benefits from his name-calling in classic troll fashion. Liberals buy his books and link to his blog posts as they howl in protest. Conservatives love him for turning liberal arguments against their creators. He gets funding and attention. As long as you can put up with the hate, what's not to like?
So I could be completely wrong, but Kotkin's outrage feels real to me somehow. I think at some point he came up with this idea that it was really liberals who were oppressing the poor with their urbanism, and it felt like some giant insight into the human condition. I, Joel Kotkin, will save the poor and the middle class! I will speak truth to power! I will show everyone who the real villains are! So he stuck with it, and now it's his life. Even if he ever figures out it's a load of horseshit, what's he going to do? Nope, he'll die happy knowing that he spent his life fighting for the little guy.
Despite the torrent of words that Kotkin has unleashed over the years, his argument is fairly simple: the American poor and middle class want houses and cars, and they want wealth and status. This will make them happy. Houses and cars mmhmmm wealth and status. Urbanists want to keep them from getting houses and cars. Therefore, urbanists are keeping the poor and middle class from their wealth and status! They're standing between the people and their happiness!
The main weak point in Kotkin's argument is the part where I wrote "mmhmmm." What is the relationship between houses and cars, wealth and status, and happiness? Well, houses and cars can act as symbols of wealth and status. They can be obtained using some combination of wealth and status, and in turn they can be used to obtain greater wealth and status. Houses and cars can make people happy, and so can wealth and prosperity.
Note that all those sentences contain the word "can." "Can" isn't the same as "always," and it isn't the same as "need." A dumpy house is not a status symbol, and a crappy car isn't a symbol of wealth. You don't have to spend your money on a house, and not everyone uses their status to obtain a car. You can get wealthy without a car, and many people achieve high status living in apartments. Most importantly, you can be happy without having a house or a car, or even being wealthy or important. Many people are.
In Kotkin's worldview, cars, houses, status, wealth and happiness are all more or less the same thing. He really seems to be incapable of distinguishing between a thing and a symbol of that thing. He acknowledges that some "elites" voluntarily give up their cars and houses and live in cities, but that is always after they've achieved status, wealth and happiness through cars and houses. The idea that you could ever become wealthy or influential while living in an apartment and taking the subway is beyond his comprehension. Because of this, anything which makes it harder for people to buy houses or drive amounts to blocking their route to prosperity. We've gotten out of the cellar, and we're pulling the ladder up with us. That perfectly good set of stairs over there? It doesn't exist.
If you try to explain that to Kotkin and friends, the response is that you, the elitist, think you know what's best for these people. But they want houses and cars, and who are you to tell them they can't have them? Of course, if you asked people whether they would prefer to be rich and riding the subway, or poor and driving a '92 Civic, they would probably choose to be rich. Same thing if you gave them the choice to be famous and powerful and live in a condo or be lonely and downtrodden in Valley Stream. By the way, if anyone's done a poll like this, please let me know!
And of course, if you try to tell them that the world can't support ten billion people living in McMansions and shopping at Target, even if they all drive Nissan Leafs, the response is a torrent of bad science, amounting to arguments that it would be so much worse for the environment if everyone rode in empty buses to condo towers with heated garages. That it would be bad for the environment if everyone took transit because nobody would take transit. I can't even imagine what kind of dreck Kotkin would come up with if you forced him to consider the fact that status is relative, or that material goods don't buy happiness.
Whatever the content, the tone borders on infantile rage, and this is really what lies at the heart of the arguments made by Kotkin and Cox, and Randal O'Toole and Sam Staley: I want it all, I want it now, and I'm going to have it, and by god, anybody who tries to tell me I can't is just a big ... Euro-American! Ooo!
Infantile rage is only one ingredient in the mix, though. A large part of Kotkin's success comes from playing to other people's infantile rage. Do you know there are people who want to keep you from moving to the suburbs? They even want to keep your kids from driving. That's right, they want to keep you down! Why? Because they're elitists, of course. They got theirs, and they want it all for themselves. None for you! But we won't let them win, will we? We'll stop their evil plans to confine us to the cities! We'll yank the money from their toy trains! And then there'll be big houses and cars for everyone!
It's really tricky to figure out what people's real motives are, and certainly Kotkin benefits from his name-calling in classic troll fashion. Liberals buy his books and link to his blog posts as they howl in protest. Conservatives love him for turning liberal arguments against their creators. He gets funding and attention. As long as you can put up with the hate, what's not to like?
So I could be completely wrong, but Kotkin's outrage feels real to me somehow. I think at some point he came up with this idea that it was really liberals who were oppressing the poor with their urbanism, and it felt like some giant insight into the human condition. I, Joel Kotkin, will save the poor and the middle class! I will speak truth to power! I will show everyone who the real villains are! So he stuck with it, and now it's his life. Even if he ever figures out it's a load of horseshit, what's he going to do? Nope, he'll die happy knowing that he spent his life fighting for the little guy.
Despite the torrent of words that Kotkin has unleashed over the years, his argument is fairly simple: the American poor and middle class want houses and cars, and they want wealth and status. This will make them happy. Houses and cars mmhmmm wealth and status. Urbanists want to keep them from getting houses and cars. Therefore, urbanists are keeping the poor and middle class from their wealth and status! They're standing between the people and their happiness!
The main weak point in Kotkin's argument is the part where I wrote "mmhmmm." What is the relationship between houses and cars, wealth and status, and happiness? Well, houses and cars can act as symbols of wealth and status. They can be obtained using some combination of wealth and status, and in turn they can be used to obtain greater wealth and status. Houses and cars can make people happy, and so can wealth and prosperity.
Note that all those sentences contain the word "can." "Can" isn't the same as "always," and it isn't the same as "need." A dumpy house is not a status symbol, and a crappy car isn't a symbol of wealth. You don't have to spend your money on a house, and not everyone uses their status to obtain a car. You can get wealthy without a car, and many people achieve high status living in apartments. Most importantly, you can be happy without having a house or a car, or even being wealthy or important. Many people are.
In Kotkin's worldview, cars, houses, status, wealth and happiness are all more or less the same thing. He really seems to be incapable of distinguishing between a thing and a symbol of that thing. He acknowledges that some "elites" voluntarily give up their cars and houses and live in cities, but that is always after they've achieved status, wealth and happiness through cars and houses. The idea that you could ever become wealthy or influential while living in an apartment and taking the subway is beyond his comprehension. Because of this, anything which makes it harder for people to buy houses or drive amounts to blocking their route to prosperity. We've gotten out of the cellar, and we're pulling the ladder up with us. That perfectly good set of stairs over there? It doesn't exist.
If you try to explain that to Kotkin and friends, the response is that you, the elitist, think you know what's best for these people. But they want houses and cars, and who are you to tell them they can't have them? Of course, if you asked people whether they would prefer to be rich and riding the subway, or poor and driving a '92 Civic, they would probably choose to be rich. Same thing if you gave them the choice to be famous and powerful and live in a condo or be lonely and downtrodden in Valley Stream. By the way, if anyone's done a poll like this, please let me know!
And of course, if you try to tell them that the world can't support ten billion people living in McMansions and shopping at Target, even if they all drive Nissan Leafs, the response is a torrent of bad science, amounting to arguments that it would be so much worse for the environment if everyone rode in empty buses to condo towers with heated garages. That it would be bad for the environment if everyone took transit because nobody would take transit. I can't even imagine what kind of dreck Kotkin would come up with if you forced him to consider the fact that status is relative, or that material goods don't buy happiness.
Whatever the content, the tone borders on infantile rage, and this is really what lies at the heart of the arguments made by Kotkin and Cox, and Randal O'Toole and Sam Staley: I want it all, I want it now, and I'm going to have it, and by god, anybody who tries to tell me I can't is just a big ... Euro-American! Ooo!
Infantile rage is only one ingredient in the mix, though. A large part of Kotkin's success comes from playing to other people's infantile rage. Do you know there are people who want to keep you from moving to the suburbs? They even want to keep your kids from driving. That's right, they want to keep you down! Why? Because they're elitists, of course. They got theirs, and they want it all for themselves. None for you! But we won't let them win, will we? We'll stop their evil plans to confine us to the cities! We'll yank the money from their toy trains! And then there'll be big houses and cars for everyone!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Why do we care about Joel Kotkin?
In my last post I introduced Joel Kotkin, self-appointed Defender of Suburbia against the Urban Elites, and gave you a taste of some of the misinformation he spreads. I linked to critiques of him by the Most Senior Fellow, by Yonah Freemark, and most recently by Jarrett Walker. To this I would like to add the DC Streetsblog crew and DMI John.
So why do all these people get so worked up over the hyperventilations of an architecture professor in the San Fernando Valley? Why is your Cap'n spending two posts (and more) on this guy? It's because Kotkin speaks the language of the left. Many pundits argue against transit in right-wing terms: conformity, progress, low taxes, property rights. When Patrick McHenry mocks cycling as "a 19th century solution," liberals tune him out as just another wingnut. John McCain's stance against Amtrak helped me and others to think of him less as a "maverick" and more as simply a reactionary. That said, it's nice that we have people continuing in the tradition of Paul Weyrich, countering these attacks and promoting transit in conservative terms. And of course people like Adron Hall in libertarian terms.
In contrast to McHenry and McCain, Kotkin speaks of oppression and social justice. In fact, in a great takedown five years ago, Jeremy Reff pointed out Kotkin's frequent use of Marxist terminology. Kotkin and Cox also throw a bit of environmental disinformation in there, drawing disproportionate attention to the pollution caused by reducing road space allocated to cars. When one academic liberal hears another academic liberal talk about the elites (he used to call us "Euro-Americans") imposing their plans on the common folk, they take notice, and it absolves them of guilt for driving their Subaru wagon to the transition workshop.
A significant portion of the support for transit comes from car-dependent liberals who are prepared to sacrifice their own short-term interests for issues of social justice and pollution reduction. Someone like Kotkin doesn't even need to refute these arguments, only to introduce enough fear, uncertainty and doubt to make these people question whether their sacrifice is working.
There are also quite a few conservatives who think in terms of standing up for the little guy against the elitists; this is a common refrain here in Queens. Because of this, it is important for transit advocates to be familiar with Kotkin's arguments and prepared to rebut them point for point. This will allow us to confront new versions of the arguments as they pop up in our local media. I therefore encourage all transit advocates to subscribe to Kotkin's RSS feed and respond to any anti-transit argument you see. Do it until you've had enough practice that you can do it in your sleep. If you let me know, I'll link to it.
So why do all these people get so worked up over the hyperventilations of an architecture professor in the San Fernando Valley? Why is your Cap'n spending two posts (and more) on this guy? It's because Kotkin speaks the language of the left. Many pundits argue against transit in right-wing terms: conformity, progress, low taxes, property rights. When Patrick McHenry mocks cycling as "a 19th century solution," liberals tune him out as just another wingnut. John McCain's stance against Amtrak helped me and others to think of him less as a "maverick" and more as simply a reactionary. That said, it's nice that we have people continuing in the tradition of Paul Weyrich, countering these attacks and promoting transit in conservative terms. And of course people like Adron Hall in libertarian terms.
In contrast to McHenry and McCain, Kotkin speaks of oppression and social justice. In fact, in a great takedown five years ago, Jeremy Reff pointed out Kotkin's frequent use of Marxist terminology. Kotkin and Cox also throw a bit of environmental disinformation in there, drawing disproportionate attention to the pollution caused by reducing road space allocated to cars. When one academic liberal hears another academic liberal talk about the elites (he used to call us "Euro-Americans") imposing their plans on the common folk, they take notice, and it absolves them of guilt for driving their Subaru wagon to the transition workshop.
A significant portion of the support for transit comes from car-dependent liberals who are prepared to sacrifice their own short-term interests for issues of social justice and pollution reduction. Someone like Kotkin doesn't even need to refute these arguments, only to introduce enough fear, uncertainty and doubt to make these people question whether their sacrifice is working.
There are also quite a few conservatives who think in terms of standing up for the little guy against the elitists; this is a common refrain here in Queens. Because of this, it is important for transit advocates to be familiar with Kotkin's arguments and prepared to rebut them point for point. This will allow us to confront new versions of the arguments as they pop up in our local media. I therefore encourage all transit advocates to subscribe to Kotkin's RSS feed and respond to any anti-transit argument you see. Do it until you've had enough practice that you can do it in your sleep. If you let me know, I'll link to it.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
What Joel Kotkin says
It's an interesting coincidence that Jarrett wrote a post debunking an article by Joel Kotkin just as I was preparing this one.
Photo: JoelKotkin.com
Over the past several years, Kotkin has released a flood of books, articles, editorials and blog posts hammering away at the same theme: most Americans want to live in big houses with lawns, and drive cars everywhere they go. He sees New Urbanists and transit advocates as enemies of this "American dream," bent on imposing our own visions of utopia in place of the will of the people. He is not alone in this; while he may be the most eloquent and respected apologist for sprawl, his arguments are echoed in editorials, blog posts and community board discussions across the country.
Some transit advocates have objected to Kotkin's portrayal of them, insisting that they are not anti-car, they just want choices. Others, seeing themselves as champions of social justice and the poor, react with bewilderment at Kotkin's accusations of elitism. But in a narrow sense he is right and they are wrong: it is impossible to be an effective transit advocate (or urbanist) without being anti-car, and this does put us in conflict with the ambitions of most Americans.
The flaw in Kotkin's argument is that it is impossible for any sane adult who understands the issues to not be in conflict with the American Dream. It's just not sustainable for everyone to live in a five-bedroom house on three acres and drive air-conditioned SUVs to office parks and big-box stores.
Yet somehow Kotkin seems to believe that in fifty years there will not only be enough suburbs for the entire current suburban population but also for most of the urban population as well, plus another hundred million. The only explanation I can give for this is wishful thinking. For his transportation analysis Kotkin relies on the work of Wendell Cox, an anti-transit, pro-sprawl crusader whose work has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Kotkin's assertions based on this have been refuted as well, by Yonah Freemark. Plus, of course, Jarrett's recent post that I linked to above.
I'll have another post soon explaining why I care about Kotkin, and why you should too.
Photo: JoelKotkin.comOver the past several years, Kotkin has released a flood of books, articles, editorials and blog posts hammering away at the same theme: most Americans want to live in big houses with lawns, and drive cars everywhere they go. He sees New Urbanists and transit advocates as enemies of this "American dream," bent on imposing our own visions of utopia in place of the will of the people. He is not alone in this; while he may be the most eloquent and respected apologist for sprawl, his arguments are echoed in editorials, blog posts and community board discussions across the country.
Some transit advocates have objected to Kotkin's portrayal of them, insisting that they are not anti-car, they just want choices. Others, seeing themselves as champions of social justice and the poor, react with bewilderment at Kotkin's accusations of elitism. But in a narrow sense he is right and they are wrong: it is impossible to be an effective transit advocate (or urbanist) without being anti-car, and this does put us in conflict with the ambitions of most Americans.
The flaw in Kotkin's argument is that it is impossible for any sane adult who understands the issues to not be in conflict with the American Dream. It's just not sustainable for everyone to live in a five-bedroom house on three acres and drive air-conditioned SUVs to office parks and big-box stores.
Yet somehow Kotkin seems to believe that in fifty years there will not only be enough suburbs for the entire current suburban population but also for most of the urban population as well, plus another hundred million. The only explanation I can give for this is wishful thinking. For his transportation analysis Kotkin relies on the work of Wendell Cox, an anti-transit, pro-sprawl crusader whose work has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Kotkin's assertions based on this have been refuted as well, by Yonah Freemark. Plus, of course, Jarrett's recent post that I linked to above.
I'll have another post soon explaining why I care about Kotkin, and why you should too.
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