Timeless Substack “About” Page

I have recently updated the “About” page for this blog site. That page, which describes the philosophy of this blog site, now reads as follows.

There is a growing need for our communities and our nation to forge a dramatically new path if we expect a quality future rich with a rewarding quality of life.

Our path for the past century has been degraded and corrupted by the application of socialist economics to our transportation system. This system, predictably, has delivered congested, oversized roadways and parking lots, an over-provision of low-density (and therefore community-destroying) development, forced and isolating travel by car, and an under-provision of compact, walkable neighborhoods.

Socialist transportation – like in socialist nations – means that American transportation suffers from quality control and a misallocation of transportation infrastructure. Shortages in many cases, and surpluses in other cases. These problems are the inevitable result of public sector bureaucrats attempting to dictate designs and needs, rather than using the far more reliable and efficient outcomes produced by a free market.

By contrast, when millions provide market signals to a transportation system, the system reliably provides a higher quality product and reliably provides a balance between supply and demand.

One reason that drivable suburbia is unstable and unsustainable, as noted by Christopher Leinberger (in his The Option of Urbanism), is that the suburban lifestyle tends to be degraded when more of it is built. Because suburbia is premised on isolation and low densities, the suburban resident finds it detrimental when more suburban development is planned in the vicinity.

By striking contrast, compact and walkable urbanism is enhanced when more homes and offices and shops and jobs are built nearby. More homes and offices and shops and jobs in a walkable neighborhood usually means there are more places for the urban resident to walk to, more neighborhood conviviality, more security, better property values, more friends, and more vibrancy.

As a result, as Leinberger points out, in suburbia, “more is less” (which is inherently unsustainable). In walkable neighborhoods, “more is better.”

Similarly, disconnected suburban roads tend to be unsustainable, because only a small number of new homes and shops are necessary to create congestion and frustration.

Consider the fact that connected, gridded, short-block streets in walkable, compact neighborhoods are able to absorb an astonishing amount of new homes and shops without a significant increase in congestion. Even if congestion were to occur, compact neighborhoods allow residents to opt out of the congestion by walking, bicycling, or transit. Or by finding alternative routes.

Not so in suburbia, where everyone is forced to be stuck in traffic on one or two roads in their cars.

Compact, walkable neighborhoods produce sufficient property tax revenue to support the public services they need over the long term. By contrast, dispersed suburban development is a Ponzi Scheme because such development quickly fails to produce sufficient property tax revenue to support the public services needed. Suburban design therefore bankrupts local government and drives up taxes. The Ponzi Scheme is that the initial boost in tax revenue provided by suburban development seduces community decision-makers into approving the development without realizing that the future will bring significant financial shortfalls.

There are a number of undesirable behaviors and traits that characterize much of America. Traits that are both emblematic of this over-provision of dispersed suburbia, and a symptom of unsustainability. A sampling of these behaviors and characteristics that endanger our future include:

Promiscuous and subsidized motoring. That is, excessive, unaffordable dependence on car travel.

Costly and dispersed subsidized suburban sprawl. A sprawl so over-provided, homogenized, and lacking in craftsmanship that the endless strips of “Anywhere USA” roads create plastic, inauthentic places not worth caring about. And not able to produce conditions necessary to induce the lifeblood of a community – exchange of goods, services, ideas, and social interaction.

A lack of transportation (except car) choices and lifestyle (except suburban) choices.

A tendency to poison our cities with “gigantism” -- a disorder that is thought to have led to the end of dinosaurs and the Roman Empire.

A tendency on the part of suburban residents to oppose compact, walkable, timeless neighborhoods.

A societal bias toward what is known as “MotorNormativity” (see vid clip below) where even non-motorists defend motor vehicles and apologize for problems created by motor vehicles.

A growing isolation from fellow citizens.

A decline in institutions such as family, religion, schools that discipline and civilize individuals.

A loss of cooperative action.

Dysfunctional health care and nutrition systems, creating an epidemic of obesity and auto-immune diseases.

A dysfunctional tax system.

In sum, the American Dream has become the American Nightmare.

Much of our future will be about establishing free markets in transportation. About restoring and re-using and renovating old, historic, traditional, lovable buildings. About providing more neighborhoods that are compact, timeless, and walkable. About providing less neighborhoods that are dispersed, oversized, and single-mindedly drivable.

The future will also be about demolishing more contemporary, unlovable, throw-away buildings, as well as unused road and parking capacity. And unused suburban development.

It is noteworthy that while “modernist” buildings in recent times tend to feature more impressive energy conservation designs than older, traditional buildings, it is the more traditional buildings that tend to be more sustainable over time because they are more likely to be more lovable (and therefore more likely to be protected by the community).

Modernist buildings are too often characterized by bizarre, quickly dated design that commonly creates a despised or embarrassing building that the community therefore tends to be all too willing — understandably — to quickly demolish.

As an aside, modernism is a design pattern that was the spawn of socialist ideology, which helps explain why such design has been most aggressively deployed in socialist nations.

The science of ecology teaches us that those species (and, in my opinion, those societies) that are rigidly incapable of adapting to changes in their environment (or are unwilling to) typically face extinction. Dispersed, drivable development patterns, behaviors, and traits – in addition to socialist economic systems -- are characterized by being unable to change. By being inflexible, such systems are quickly discarded, as change in our world is inevitable.

Too often, tragically, when a society in the past was faced with a choice between fundamentally changing its behavior and extinction, that society has chosen extinction.

This blog newsletter is dedicated to not opting for extinction. Much of the work of opting to avert extinction will require finding the courage to point out the elephant in the room. To point out that the emperor wears no clothes.

This newsletter is intended to be a collaborative conversation about how our society can take steps toward a better, more enduring future – a future that is more durable, more resilient, and more hopeful because society has taken the path of striving to shed behavior and characteristics that are counterproductive to a timeless quality of life. And replacing the above-mentioned dysfunction with lasting, community-building, equitable, affordable, and pride-inducing concepts.

It is essential – financially, environmentally, and with regard to our quality of life – to return to the timeless tradition of designing to make people happy, not cars.

To design, timelessly, for modest speeds and modest sizes and modest dimensions.