Savannah: Ever Changing, But Still The Same If You Know Where To Look

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It marked a violent end to a tragic love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I moved to a new job near Savannah and was soon seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I bought a townhouse in the historic district and in a matter of weeks realized the city was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book about Savannah in my future but I was too busy adjusting to new work, stumbling through a failing relationship with the woman who came with me, and serving as general contractor restoring my "livable" townhouse.

John Berendt, the man who would eventually write that book, first visited the city around 1981 long after I escaped to the beach. He returned two or three times gathering even more fascinating and compelling characteristics about the city and its people. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. The result was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller with a broad impact. Savannah's tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. A decade later nearly 20 million tourists visited the city. They spent $5 billion and made the city a leading destination for international tourism.

Yes, Savannah experienced change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The downtown historic district became a hot real estate market on an international scale. It also became a fishbowl brimming with tourists. Soon the preservation pioneers from the '70s and '80s paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced.

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades provide a pleasing backdrop. The ships glide in and out of port with the flood and ebb of the tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's, perhaps one of the world's, most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can still find the essence of the old Southern city I knew over forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.


John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.




Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use


Text:
Wikipedia.org
interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

Chernobyl After 38 Years

 

Abandoned room in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) reactor explosion and fire occurred on this day in 1986. The event remains the worst accident of its kind. A precise number of casualties will never be known beyond the 41 who died during and in the few months following the event.

On the edge of the plant, a city died. Its 50,000 people were evacuated in two days leaving behind a photograph of interrupted lives. In the 38 years since the reactor meltdown and fire the decaying remains of Pripyat have become a prime destination for those seeking the disturbing presence of abandoned and decaying places.

The background radiation in Pripyat remains about three times above normal with hot spots exceeding fifty times normal. The situation has not prevented the growth of a robust tourist industry focused on the event and its aftermath. Although the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought tourism to a halt this site is a good indicator of the response to curiosity surrounding the area. In time I have no doubt that tourists will return to experience what has become one of the strangest places on the planet.

In 1994 One Book Changed The Life Of A City

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It marked a violent end to a tragic love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I moved to a new job near Savannah and was soon seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I bought a townhouse in the historic district and in a matter of weeks realized the city was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book about Savannah in my future but I was too busy adjusting to work, stumbling through a relationship with the woman who came with me, and serving as general contractor restoring my "livable" townhouse.

John Berendt, the man who would eventually write that book first visited the city around 1981 long after I escaped to the beach. He returned two or three times gathering even more fascinating and compelling characteristics about the city and its people. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. The result was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller with a broad impact. Savannah's tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. Yes, Savannah experienced change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The downtown historic district became a hot real estate market on an international scale. It also became a fishbowl brimming with tourists. Soon the preservation pioneers from the '70s and '80s paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced. 

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades provide a pleasing backdrop. The ships glide in and out of port with the flood and ebb of the tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can find the city I knew over forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.


John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.




Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use


Text:
Wikipedia.org
interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

Chernobyl and Pripyat: Disaster And Decay

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) reactor explosion and fire occurred on this day in 1986. The event remains the worst accident of its kind. A precise number of casualties will never be known beyond the 41 who died during and in the few months following the event. 

On the edge of the plant, a city died. Its 50,000 people were evacuated in two days leaving behind a photograph of interrupted lives. In the 37 years since the reactor meltdown and fire the decaying remains of Pripyat have become a prime destination for those seeking the disturbing presence of abandoned and decaying places.

The background radiation in Pripyat remains about three times above normal with hot spots exceeding fifty times normal. The situation has not prevented the growth of a robust tourist industry focused on the event and its aftermath. Although the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought tourism to a halt this site is a good indicator of the response to curiosity surrounding the area. In time I have no doubt that tourists will return to experience what has become one of the strangest places on the planet.

Midnight In The Garden Of Savannah

 

May 2 is a significant date in Savannah's modern history. On that day in 1981 Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. It was a tragic end to a gay love story and the catalyst for an enormously successful non-fiction novel and the economic and social transformation of a city. In 1977 I was employed near Savannah and seduced by the city's charm and opportunities. I had been living in the historic district only a few months before realizing it was a most unusual urban tapestry inhabited by a full range of entertaining and eccentric characters. There could have been a book in my future but I was too busy adjusting to a new job as well as being the general contractor managing the restoration of my "livable" townhouse.

The man who would write the book was John Berendt. He visited the city a few times before 1982 and noticed its interesting if not compelling characteristics. Three years later he moved to Savannah in search of broadening his writing career. The project that emerged was a travelogue built around the Williams-Hansford story. It was unlike any proposal the publishing industry had ever seen.

The book was a sensation, a best seller, and tourism exploded, also enhanced by the highly successful Savannah College of Art and Design and its historic preservation initiative. For comparison, there were 5 million tourists who spent $600 million in 1993. The numbers jumped to 12.5 million and $2.2 billion in 2013. Yes, Savannah experience change quickly. There were more restaurants to enjoy. The night life flourished. Tour options abounded, from ghost, to pirate, to transsexual. The pace changed: faster, broader, deeper, never ending, and more expensive. The historic district became a fishbowl. Soon, the preservation pioneers paid $6,000, $8,000, then $10,000 or more in city/county taxes to live in the homes they had lovingly restored. Many of them left. Had I stayed, I too would have been displaced. My wife and I could no longer have afforded to live in the home I restored. 

Today, the people go about their daily lives shadowed by those magnificent, moss draped live oaks. The wonderfully restored facades look down on them daily. The ships glide in on the incoming tides. And Bonaventure's ancient gate welcomes the living and the dead into what I believe is by far the nation's most beautiful cemetery. So much has changed in Savannah, but in the quiet hours, in the intimate gardens, and in the music of the squares as well as that of a piano a few door away, you can find the city I knew forty years ago. One thing you can't find is my book. You'll have to look to another author for the story.

John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published in 1994. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction in 1995. More than 3 million copies have been sold. The book remains the  longest running title - 216 weeks - on the New York Times Best Seller list. Trust me. It's a good read.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:

front cover art, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Random House, New York, 1994, fair use

Text:

Wikipedia.org

interview, Booknotes, interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, August, 12, 1997

Chernobyl After 36 Years

 

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) reactor explosion and fire occurred on this day in 1986. The event remains the worst accident of its kind. A precise number of casualties will never be known beyond the 41 who died during and in the few months following the event. On the edge of the plant, a city died. Its 50,000 people were evacuated in two days leaving behind a photograph of interrupted lives. In the 36 years since the reactor meltdown and fire the decaying remains of Pripyat have become a prime destination for those seeking the disturbing presence of abandoned and decaying places.

The background radiation in Pripyat remains about three times above normal with hot spots exceeding fifty times normal. The situation has not prevented the growth of a robust tourist industry focused on the event and its aftermath. Although the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought tourism to a halt this site is a good indicator of the response to curiosity surrounding  the area. In time I have no doubt that tourists will return to experience what has become one of the strangest places on the planet. 

The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster On The Eve Of Its Third Decade

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) reactor explosion and fire occurred on this day in 1986. The event remains the worst accident of its kind. A precise number of casualties will never be known beyond the 41 who died during and in the few months following the event. On the edge of the plant, the city of Pripyat died. Its 50,000 people were evacuated in two days leaving behind a photograph of interrupted lives. In the 29 years since it has become a prime destination for those seeking the disturbing presence of abandoned and decaying places.

The background radiation in Pripyat remains about three times above normal with hot spots exceeding fifty times normal. Should you choose to visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the city of Pripyat, here are the tourist rules. 

Urban Sprawl And The Myth Of The Killer Commute

Atlanta's infamous Downtown Connector

This morning, OTR took advantage of the opportunity to vote early in the Georgia primary election. His trek to the polls wasn't particularly exciting with one exception: the Metro Atlanta TPLOST question. There are 5.3 million people in this area and most of them seem to be going from one place to another most of the time. As a result there is a perception that Atlanta has a horrendous traffic problem and it is strangling the place's economic future. Enter the TPLOST question: Will Atlanta voters support  a one cent sales tax to be collected over ten years and devoted to a list of projects designed to resolve the worst transportation issues? The plan has quite a mix of ingredients, but the "soup" isn't attracting broad support. Aside from the usual distrust of local officials carrying through with the plan, some see it as a jobs package while others raise the question of what constitutes a meaningful solution to Atlanta's current and future travel needs. Some would suggest our TPLOST advocates really aren't asking the right questions. The field of urban studies is after all a very inexact science. On the other hand, we do have some understanding of how cities work and how the human species adjusts to urban traffic challenges.

Charlie Gardner examines urban settings and their populations in his blog, Old Urbanist. His latest post addresses commuting times. Atlanta's TPLOST advocates have been using the topic as a major selling point. Surprise, surprise! Are all those horror stories we hear about urban commuting accurate? Does Atlanta have a killer commute? And do those commutes spell death for urban growth and prosperity? Gardner writes that there is a surprising "similarity between mean commuting times among large metro areas, regardless of their population." It appears that thirty minutes or thereabout defines the limit. And after thirty minutes?

The conventional explanation for this phenomenon, as one 1997 study puts it, is that "individuals and firms mutually co-locate in response to congestion costs, and thus reshape those costs."  Implicit in this "tradeoff" theory is that, for most people, commutes beyond a certain length of time are undesirable despite any other advantages that might be gained from the location (e.g. housing cost, school quality, taxation level, crime), or else we should see commute lengths increase at a faster rate relative to population.

Yes, cities may have their limits when it comes to commuting, but the human response doesn't necessarily spell the end to prosperity. Urban studies junkies can read Gardner's post here. Comments are a "must read." Interesting stuff. Really.

Photo: Joeff Davis/Creative Loafing Atlanta

Walking In Places

Forsyth Park, Savannah, Georgia

There was a time not so long ago when recreational walking was a popular pastime in the United States. The computer and its games, the focus on the automobile as transportation, an aging population, and other demographic and cultural variables have taken a big toll on this activity. Indeed, we've come a long way from the time Mom sent us out the door after a summer lunch and didn't expect to see us until the street lights came on.

OTR has lived somewhat outside this transition. A career in our national parks gave him some unforgettable experiences including multi-day treks across the Grand Canyon's Tonto Bench, over the woodland trails and beach of Cumberland Island, and almost all of the 184 miles of towpath on the C&O Canal. His job responsibilities kept him "in the traces" into his sixties as he walked hundreds of miles over hundreds of trails from the Mississippi River southeast to the U.S. Virgin Islands. No question, there is less walking in his retirement, much of it due to some minor though irritating disabilities.

Today, recreational trail use, even in the national parks, has dropped dramatically over the past twenty years. Park visitors don't walk nearly as much these days. And worse, on a national scale, our children don't go outside much either. Among park professionals and other outdoor enthusiasts, there is a serious concern that we are raising a generation of citizens who will no longer appreciate nature or preserve its resources into the future.

Tom Vanderbilt has a four-part essay at Slate examining the lost experience of walking in an urban setting. Readers will learn what we once had, why we lost it, and how it can be rediscovered. An appreciation of safe and satisfying walks in our urban settings puts us only a few steps away from enjoying the wilder places in our world.

H/T to Glenn Reynolds and Instapundit.

Occupy DC: Dying Media And Depressing Entropic Urbanism

You're going to enjoy Steven Hayward's superb six minute Power Line production on the Washington Post's interpretation of the Occupy DC settlement. The Post writes that the new town in McPherson Square is "a mix of both admonition and promise," and "something new" for the arts and design community.  Hayward proceeds to show and tell us otherwise.

Note on the video: If you were like OTR, the amazing clip on proximity in Bangkok likely piqued your curiosity in the rest of this TED program by futurist, Stewart Brand. Here's the link to this sixteen minute video.



H/T to OTR's daughter, another observer of the American experience.

More Decay In Detroit

At NRO's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg posted this link to a Guardian photo essay on the continuing decline and loss of Detroit's rich architectural history. OTR suspects our recent near-depression will have a significant impact on the historic preservation movement. In the future, we'll do less with less. Some would say that strategy is long overdue. OTR doesn't disagree with that approach. We'll just need to make wiser choices. Once the wrecking ball does its work, there is no turning back.

Michelle Rhee: Making Change In Florida

OTR seldom listens to talk radio, but he did awake this morning to Neal Boortz, who rants on his program as the chief priest of what he calls "The Church of the Painful Truth." After more than twenty years as a resident of Atlanta, Boortz recently honored his wife's wish to relocate to Florida, Naples to be exact. They owned a condo there for many years, so Boortz has often found "local" political themes to bring to his listeners and his website. That was the case this morning when he mentioned the significance of Michelle Rhee's appointment as Florida's Commissioner of Education. Rhee made significant improvements in Washington, DC, as chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system. Rhee's extraordinary reforms, among other politics, energized the local teachers unions to oppose the re-election of Mayor Adrian Fenty. He was defeated in the November elections. Rhee resigned prior to the election after seeing its outcome on the horizon.

Boortz sees this loss for Washington students as a great opportunity for Florida, a state without an income tax, but one burdened by a mediocre school system. If Rhee, as a member of Republican Governor Rick Scott's cabinet, can work her magic on the schools, Florida should once again become a magnet for those who understand and appreciate the value and meaning of entrepreneurship, wealth preservation and quality education. Boortz also sees Florida's expansion as very costly to Georgia, a state in need of serious educational reform. Georgia could well be flirting with ending its income tax, already having done so for virtually all retirees, but many of its schools would continue to stall improvement particularly in core urban centers and small rural counties.

It will be interesting for OTR to see how Georgia handles the competition from her southern neighbor. Unless Georgia's leadership wakes up to the pending Scott-Rhee reforms and the tax differential, Boortz predicts that a savvy Atlanta businessman could make a fortune arranging relocations to the Sunshine State. The people will always gravitate to multiple opportunities. Boortz generally avoids inflammatory rhetoric, so OTR respects his interpretation of this pending scenario. Perhaps this wake-up call could bring the necessary improvements to the Peach State. Imagine the two coastal states of Georgia and Florida as a great magnet with a combined population of 26,000,000 people (2010), 40 congressmen, no state income tax, other business-friendly incentives, quality education systems at all levels, and a superb geography and climate. This is, for certain, the kind of hope and change that Americans are waiting for. Rhee could play a major role in that transformation. OTR wishes her the best.

Can Dying Cities Be Saved?

Veronique de Rugy has a post at NRO applauding Reason TV's six-part series on the question of saving our declining cities. The series focuses on Cleveland, a city she notes ranked as the sixth largest in the nation in 1950. Here is your link to her post and more.

City Cycles

When OTR left his hometown more than fifty years ago, there were five major industries within an easy commute and thousands took advantage of the high union wages. Today, only two of those industries remain. Both operate at significantly reduced levels. One of them - the paper mill - may soon be on life support due to international trade and environmental issues.

Smaller towns, particularly those in the old industrialized East and Midwest, face similar challenges as the post-industrial world leaves its imprint across the national landscape. When all the variables are positive, the field of urban geography is filled with examples of persistent settlement. When we examine the record, it becomes clear that those variables will likely drive many if not most towns out of existence. It is a hard fate to accept when that town has birthed and nurtured those who can still remember the good times. USA TODAY has explored these issues in a story about Ravenswood, West Virginia. Link to the story here. Be sure to check the comments, now numbering over 1400 at the last update.

More Detroit: Potential For The Urban Prairie

Check out this post from The Urbanophile for some cutting edge ideas on the future of Detroit. Even if you don't care about urban studies, you''ll enjoy the graphics. All of this comes by way of a brief opinion piece by Michael Barone - a Detroit native - in the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential column. If this is your subject, be sure to link to the other Urbanophile columns he mentions.

Source: Instapundit

Future Forests On The Road To Hell In Bozeman

Municipal governments have a responsibility not only to make cities function efficiently, but also to make them visually attractive. We also know that, especially in government, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Herein lies the challenge. How do cities find a workable balance between the built environment, its function, and a natural setting? The question has been asked for centuries. As one interested enough in human geography to make somewhat of a career out of it, I had my share of urban studies and landscape courses. Those studies took place next door to Greenbelt, Maryland, a New Deal planned town, and more contemporary and ambitious projects, including Reston, Virginia, Columbia, Maryland, and Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Furthermore, some of the best minds in the field attended nearby conferences and often visited our department. The two I remember most were Edmund Bacon and Ian McHarg, both extraordinary teachers from the University of Pennsylvania. It was an honor to receive such training and it proved valuable over a near forty year career. Today, it's turned me into an observer of urban scenes where the best of intentions sometime create opposites bordering on the absurd.

Welcome to Bozeman, Montana, home of Montana State's Fighting Bobcats and the fifth largest city in the fastest growing county in the state. Bozeman is a progressive city where "the environment" takes on an added dimension. If you don't think so, check out the city's homepage where you can get the latest information on urban chickens, toilet rebates, and sustainability. Nothing wrong with this. I applaud any city's attempt to improve itself, to take extra pride in improving the quality of life for its residents and visitors alike. All things, however, must be carefully evaluated from broad perspectives, then orchestrated through planning and construction. Once a plan is in the landscape, it tends to stay there for a very long time. Best get it as right as one can the first time. And the first step is to recall the dictum of the great American architect, Louis Sullivan, that "form must ever follow function." Herein is an object lesson for the well-meaning authorities in Bozeman.

This city of near 30,000 people serves as the commercial nexus for a much larger regional population as well as a service center for traffic on I-90. As expected, commercial growth has occurred primarily along a few corridors linking downtown with the interstate. The town was a convenient stopover on a trip my wife and I and another couple took last month following the footsteps of Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean and back to St. Louis. The four of us arrived in Bozeman from the west at dusk and decided to have a light dinner at the North 19th Avenue exit before checking in at our motel a few miles to the east. The first mile of North 19th is new, dense commercial construction. The next mile features more mixed use, but retains a strong commercial character. The key word here is "commercial." The overwhelming purpose of this area is to conduct business.

Unfortunately, Bozeman authorities have made it extremely difficult and downright frustrating for travelers or anyone unfamiliar with North 19th to use it safely and efficiently. There are two primary reasons. First, meaningful signage simply doesn't exist. Local ordinances apparently allow signs perpendicular to the highway only for shopping centers. We saw few of them, none over twenty-five feet high, and all of inconsistent design. If you own a store in the center proper or are an independent business, you have to rely on the name on your facade for identity. Too bad if your business happens to be 300-500 feet off the avenue, as scores are. Often, those signs were unreadable unless you had a recognizable brand.

If this were not enough, a second obstacle made sign reading into a physical exercise. The culprit was a tree-lined buffer anywhere from 25-100 feet wide. This challenge had us bobbing and weaving trying to interpret signs in the dark as we cruised the avenue at 35 mph. Granted, the intermittent planting of conifers and deciduous trees was attractive, but it did not help customers find their stores. Perhaps over time, the leafy trees will grow out of being obstacles. That will never happen with the conifers. I couldn't help noticing that once inside the buffer the vast expanses of shopping center parking were interrupted by attractive arrays of landscaped islands. Very well done. But it still didn't help me find my chili and salad.

After a half hour of searching a 2.5 mile segment of North 19th at the end of Bozeman's "rush hour," one of us spotted our destination. It was 300-400 feet off the main drag in the midst of other businesses and identifiable only by its name - a brand - on a facade. The place was essentially invisible to drivers coming off the interstate.

Finding our lodging was much easier, I suppose, because it was nicely clustered with other motels at the North 7th Avenue exit. Again, we never saw a free-standing sign and identified the place by its name on a facade. Once inside the cluster it was almost laughable to see that one motel had installed its brand sign at street level. The setback off North 7th and height made it almost useless from North 7th and completely invisible from I-90. The only exceptions were a familiar "M," not for a motel, but for Ronald McDonald's eatery at the end of the street and a free-standing, low motel sign at the complex entrance. All of the signage, though obviously regulated, had about it a feeling of complete randomness. Randomness doesn't mix well with interstate travel.

Now perhaps I've been a bit tough on the city of Bozeman and its well-meaning authorities. Some things, like those landscaped islands in the parking lots, they are doing right. The wooded buffer and absence of workable signage is quite another story. It may be a sign that officials are interpreting "the environment" to mean "nature" only and excluding the built environment as the other half of the equation. Furthermore, Bozeman is a university city - quite liberal, I'm sure - in the young West whose officials may be feeling a bit negative about capitalists and their enterprises. It wouldn't be the first case of "environmentalists" acting as anti-capitalists. Do they see business as a dirty enterprise worthy of being isolated from the community? Could be, for in spite of all the buffers, the tiny or non-existent signs, the sky-glow friendly lights - I didn't discuss them - and more, it appears that North 19th street has been zoned into nothing more than a huge, dreaded strip mall. Progressive types should be entertaining mixed-use zoning where businesses and multi-density residences co-exist and the car is a tertiary form of transportation. A little adjustment would go a long way to improving function and livability. Perhaps some Fighting Bobcats commissioners will read this post. I don't expect these decision makers to be urban planning experts. But they should be aware of basics; therefore, I'd like to offer them some advice to reinforce their good efforts. First, check out this SUNY Small Business Development Center site on signage, then this site on neighborhoods, and finally, this site maintained by the Congress For The New Urbanism. Maybe this information can soften the hearts of the more strident "environmentalist" types as well. We should all remember the power of the middle way.

Next year, we hope to return to Montana and Bozeman. I like the city, and I'm not alone as the place consistently rates high on any number of "best" lists. It obviously has enthusiastic boosters, a university community to keep it edgy, and economic growth during a national recession. All are good signs for the city. At least this visitor won't need signs next time, as long as he wants a motel room, and a Wendy's chili and a salad on the Road to Hell.

Sex In The City Future

Imagine a future of enormous interior urban spaces, full of complexity, where anonymity washes away inhibitions and feeds the arousal of the masses. Lawrence Osborne, writing in Forbes.com, takes us to places where the prototypes of such a future have already arrived. Most interesting. Link to Osborne's thoughts on urbanism here.

Ohio Exodus

Earlier this week, OTR posted a few articles on urban decline. Courtesy of Instapundit, here is one about the situation in Ohio. In the '50s, one of my uncles moved his family to Ohio, following one of his sons-in-law out of the Appalachians. More of my cousins followed them and did well, finding good industrial jobs that lasted into the '70s. By the time their children - my second cousins - began their careers, the economy in the Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown triangle was in decline. Did they stay? Did they move on after a long struggle like their grandfather? I can't say as I lost touch with them years ago. Mobility and time have a way of eroding families in much the same way that policy and environment can erode a community.

There's Just No One Left To Kill

The New Ledger has an interesting comment that's relevant to my Detroit post on Sunday. Here's the link. I got a charge out of mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas's remark on the 14% decline in Detroit's murder rate, "I don't mean to be sarcastic, but there's just no one left to kill"... That's progress for you.