Loved this! The “heresy of paraphrase” is a game-changing idea as it also forces us to be more cognizant of our past experiences and the past experiences of others.
This was great! "Trying to explain a poem is not the same as experiencing the poem." Yes yes yes; new urbanism used to be a little side-interest-rabbit-hole, but now this stuff has totally changed our lifestyle and it's shaping every member of my family in beautiful ways.
And wow that's a compelling booklist! Thanks for sharing.
New Urbanism is a pointless facade. Real estate agent and developer propaganda. You cannot privilege aesthetics over the fundamental political-economic base of society -- and of the city specifically. All New Urbanism has accomplished is gated communities for rich people in the suburbs or pseudo-gated communities for yuppies within the city. These people think the only purpose of public space is to shop. They are obsessed with retail and consumption. Not only is this bad economics considering the plight of brick and mortar retail -- more fundamentally, it's spiritually and ethically wrong and hostile to the public and civic society. Rem Koolhaas argued that shopping was the last form of public activity, and thus he's tried to incorporate aspects of public parks into his designs for clients like Prada. Excellent values, the point of urban planning is now to give the rich places to shop -- and the poor a place to work at or rob.
Urban planners have been brainwashed in this way, they subscribe to the same religious delusion as the financier: market brain. The belief that "the market" is a perfect and divine instrument that justly and efficiently distributes goods and services to people. Anyone who has lived in the world for the last 40 or so years knows that's a lie. The urban planner full-throatedly believes in this lie, in the emancipatory power of the market; he talks about "trickle down housing" like Ronald Reagan might have. He hates public housing but loves it when a developer adds 3 units of "affordable" housing to his tax-funded development project. He wants to further deregulate construction and the development process to make it easier to exploit the poor.
I'm enjoying your blog which I just discovered today, but boy do "urbanists" need to take a critical view on these ideas that are supposedly emancipatory but aren't actually working to do anything except transfer wealth from poor to rich. To turn the city into a "mixed use" theme park for the rich. I'd recommend taking a more optimistic view on the public sector and being critical of profit-oriented entities and the NGOs who serve them.
Love the Jamie Smith rec! I recently taught a lesson from You Are What You Love to a room full of pretty "heady" Presbyterians, and more or less Socratic-Methoded through to Smith's thesis, and I got lots of really good response from people saying they'd never thought about it that way.
I think his insight holds up even if you don't share his faith: there's a lot more to us than just the top level rationality, and understanding that can really improve the way you interact with folks.
Loved this! The “heresy of paraphrase” is a game-changing idea as it also forces us to be more cognizant of our past experiences and the past experiences of others.
This was great! "Trying to explain a poem is not the same as experiencing the poem." Yes yes yes; new urbanism used to be a little side-interest-rabbit-hole, but now this stuff has totally changed our lifestyle and it's shaping every member of my family in beautiful ways.
And wow that's a compelling booklist! Thanks for sharing.
(I love the longer format of this post btw!)
New Urbanism is a pointless facade. Real estate agent and developer propaganda. You cannot privilege aesthetics over the fundamental political-economic base of society -- and of the city specifically. All New Urbanism has accomplished is gated communities for rich people in the suburbs or pseudo-gated communities for yuppies within the city. These people think the only purpose of public space is to shop. They are obsessed with retail and consumption. Not only is this bad economics considering the plight of brick and mortar retail -- more fundamentally, it's spiritually and ethically wrong and hostile to the public and civic society. Rem Koolhaas argued that shopping was the last form of public activity, and thus he's tried to incorporate aspects of public parks into his designs for clients like Prada. Excellent values, the point of urban planning is now to give the rich places to shop -- and the poor a place to work at or rob.
Urban planners have been brainwashed in this way, they subscribe to the same religious delusion as the financier: market brain. The belief that "the market" is a perfect and divine instrument that justly and efficiently distributes goods and services to people. Anyone who has lived in the world for the last 40 or so years knows that's a lie. The urban planner full-throatedly believes in this lie, in the emancipatory power of the market; he talks about "trickle down housing" like Ronald Reagan might have. He hates public housing but loves it when a developer adds 3 units of "affordable" housing to his tax-funded development project. He wants to further deregulate construction and the development process to make it easier to exploit the poor.
I'm enjoying your blog which I just discovered today, but boy do "urbanists" need to take a critical view on these ideas that are supposedly emancipatory but aren't actually working to do anything except transfer wealth from poor to rich. To turn the city into a "mixed use" theme park for the rich. I'd recommend taking a more optimistic view on the public sector and being critical of profit-oriented entities and the NGOs who serve them.
Just ordered “Palaces for the People” per your recommendation—AND I ordered it from local bookstore The Book and Cover😀
Love the Jamie Smith rec! I recently taught a lesson from You Are What You Love to a room full of pretty "heady" Presbyterians, and more or less Socratic-Methoded through to Smith's thesis, and I got lots of really good response from people saying they'd never thought about it that way.
I think his insight holds up even if you don't share his faith: there's a lot more to us than just the top level rationality, and understanding that can really improve the way you interact with folks.