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I just read the first in a series of upcoming car-and-oil-dependency-related Civ Watch essays, inspired by a reading of Suburban Nation, which was recommended to me here on Hatrack, and which I then recommended to OSC.
It does a good job of summarizing the problem, but I'm more looking forward to the next essay, in which he apparently plans to start talking about solutions.
Anyway, once it shows up online, check it out!
PS: If the title of this thread makes any sense to you, you play too many MMOs.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Yay. And if he manages to make it all the way through the essay without hurling a spitball at the intellectual elites running our institutions, I'll send him a flower basket. *grin*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Out of curiosity, what is the origin of this persistent belief in the US that the media and universities are dominated by the left wing/elites? We don't nearly get that to such a degree up here.
How do they justify how it started and why it continues to themselves? Do they believe that a left-wing conspiracy took over in the past and then influences each succeeding generation? Or is it more of a "knowledge corrupts" thing, that knowledge literally corrupts people away from the right wing? And do they believe that its a global thing, which happens across the world or just a regional US thing?
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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The media isn't really controlled by liberals or conservatives... Self-interest knows no political bounds (or more likely finds changing said bounds easy and convenient).
And I gotta ask... who made the recommendation to read it? I've been trying to get a discussion going on it here for 4 years, so either I get a star for recommending it or I'll have at least two other people to discuss it with.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I don't remember who recommended it ... I just remember seeing the title on Hatrack, going to Amazon, and immediately ordering it
It was a couple months ago, on another thread that somehow ended up on the same topic.
Tom, he makes a stab at Global Warming. Does that invalidate the fruit basket offer?
Mucus, the left-wing influence over universities and the media only makes sense. Progressive politics, by its nature, tends to value and pursue new ideas and revolutionary policies that seek to correct old problems, and intellectual and artistic communities, by their nature pursue the same kinds of things. "The old ideas are wrong! Look at what we've discovered! We can cast off those old misconceptions that held us back!" is a rallying cry that appeals to all of the above.
"Man, I sure am glad we're still doing things the way my parents did them! Those were some smart people. Whew, we sure avoided a lot of hypothetical problems by listening to our elders and sticking to our convictions," isn't quite as popular among artsy-smartsy types ... like myself, actually. Which is way, despite my conservative leanings on some important issues (abortion, for instance), I can never quite get out of my moderate stance.
I think we should question ourselves and develop new strategies. Constantly. And I think art and the university are ideal places to do that. I just think that we should be ready to discover, as we have in the realm of city planning, that we had it right a hundred years ago, and made "progress" that hurt us in the long run.
Preferably, we should make such realizations before said "progress" has had too much of an impact, and cannot be taken back
We run into problems when too many people get together and repeat the same lovely ideas to each other until they sound like the truth, regardless of what the evidence is actually saying (again, as we've seen with a lot of city planning). That is also something that can happen at universities and in the media, and that is why many people can be suspicious of them when they start to lean a bit too completely and emphatically to the left on a given issue.
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PS: All this criticism of city planning is making me grateful that Squick and Rabbit never got into that particular field, or I think we'd have a giant fight on our hands Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Well, a lot of what changed population patterns in the last 100 years wasn't due to "progressive" ideals, except perhaps providing the means (not the motive).
My brother and I had an interesting discussion of the move to suburbia on Easter, particularly the influence of the rise of cars, and how much "White Flight" was a cause or an effect. This would no doubt dovetail into the premise of the above book.
Also, I live in a town that had no choice but to not follow the last 100 years of growth and urban construction, so I get to be smug about that too
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Architraz Warden, Puppy: Thats not really my focus. Perhaps my original phrasing did not make it clear. I'm asking those five questions of someone who really believes that there is a left-wing conspiracy/domination.
I'm not trying to troll, this is just out of curiosity. We simply do not get that up here in Canada, or at least not remotely as much in degree so I want to get an idea of what they're thinking.
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I do think that there is a left-wing "domination" of the university and the arts. I just don't think it's conscious or nefarious, or that it's even avoidable.
I do think that people in prominent positions in such fields need to be conscious of the tendency for progressive ideals to become too dominant in those kinds of settings, and work to promote intellectual diversity, even if promoting homogeneity would actually benefit their position. Sort of an "I hate your opinion, but I'll die to protect your right to express it" situation.
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*checks World Watch for article on oil dependency* *is disappointed on many, many levels* *taps foot impatiently*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Rhino Times -- I assume this is the article. I've been wrong a couple times before, though, or so I've been told.
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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Thanks, Papa! It was a pretty good article, too, even though I -- the Perpetual Critic -- wish he'd spent more time analyzing the biggest problem with this sort of redesign: that since property values do soar under this scenario, and whole neighborhoods essentially have to be reconstructed, the lower middle class often can't afford the type of living New Urbanism recommends to them.
Right now, walkable neighborhoods require either a certain level of population density or a certain level of overall affluence. And in the former scenario, it's unlikely that a wide range of employment opportunities are going to be nearby -- which requires that mass transit options exist first, in order to make living in a driving-hostile area a viable option.
That said, I agree with him wholeheartedly. The only reason I raise any objections at all is that I couldn't manage to find a way to actually live in Madison -- where my job is -- and own a home under the salary being offered. I suspect this is common: movement to the suburbs nowadays is driven as much by property taxes and housing prices as anything else. We could live carless and rent, and certainly that's a traditional model, but I don't think Christy or I could ever let go of our little patch of yard.
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I don't think that Card is trying to encourage driving-hostile development. One of the points of Suburban Nation is that designing roads with priorities other than smooth traffic flow doesn't actually damage the driving experience much at all, while pouring a lot of resources into improving the driving experience has vastly diminishing returns.
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And if he manages to make it all the way through the essay without hurling a spitball at the intellectual elites running our institutions, I'll send him a flower basket. *grin*
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