Contributor Blog

I am writing this missive from the living room of a Starbucks. Not that you'd care where I'm writing from. Except this time it's relevant. 

Here on Montana Avenue, in Santa Monica, I'm joined by other folks who are also on their laptops, recovering from yoga, or just biding their time. The guy sitting at my table just sold a pilot to Fox. That's nice for him. A few weeks ago I sat next to Hillary Swank here. She's not hurting either.  

But others aren't so lucky. To its credit, Starbucks seems to want to do something about it.

To its minimal credit, Borders Books & Music always had a a few shelves where the works of Jacobs, Mumford, Kunstler, Whyte, Florida, and others resided. 

But, judging by the financial and aesthetic bankruptcies of, respectively, Borders and many American cities, it seems that copies of Life and Death (or anything else) weren't exactly flying out the door. If the public's understanding of urban economies even began to rival its fascination for gossip, self-help, and vampires, Borders never would have arisen in the first place.

California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer would be better off dead.

Hang on. Let me explain.

I wish no harm to the treasurer. I'm willing to assume that he's a decent fellow and a dedicated public servant. Yet, as he walks among the living, even he abides by the whims of human frailty. At least one legislator, and more than a few other civic leaders, in the Bay Area seems to think otherwise.

Most trends are fleeting, some of them mercifully so. Some last no longer than a Lady Gaga wardrobe change. But urbanism is still, by and large, a leisurely exercise, so it's no wonder that planners still embrace fashions on a nearly generational basis. It often takes that long just to see if something works. Or not. 

So, while Gaga would inspire us to attach telephones to our heads and light our bustiers on fire, planners who ascribe to the principles of smart growth are still rhetorically swaddling cities in the urban equivalent of flannel. For better or worse, this age may finally be coming to a close. Don't cry, Monster.

For some lucky candidates,tomorrow’s election will have a storybook ending. Unfortunately for anyone who understands architecture, planning, and land use, that storybook will, in many cases, turn out to be The Fountainhead.

The train wreck of ideologies that is emerging this election season is too much for anyone to categorize.

I write this blog from the concrete cradle of Nokia Plaza, an urban space so wondrous that the global arm of the Urban Land Institute has bestowed upon it one of five “2010 Global Awards for Excellence." In winning such a distinguished award, you’d think that developer AEG would have invited the Laker Girls and be pouring Champagne for an ebullient crowd here in one of the world’s great public spaces. Except they’re not. In fact, I’m pretty much alone.

I don’t suppose the pigeons are carrying Cristal underwing?

I wasn't even in Los Angeles yesterday, and for once I'm glad. Everything from my Facebook feed to the morning headlines told me that traffic on the Westside yesterday afternoon was so awful that only a parade of obscenities accompanied by words like "cluster" and "show" would have sufficed to describe it. Hardened locals were driven nearly to tears behind the wheels of their unmoving cars.  

The president was in town.

Even more so than usual, few people will be receiving buildings as gifts this season.  They're too expensive, you can’t return them, and, notwithstanding Barbie’s Dream House, they probably won't fit under your tree.  But still, this Yuletide affords ample opportunity to take stock of the works that have arisen in this most momentous of decades. 

BOSTON -- If you've ever studied the bar menu at Trader Vic's then you know about such wonders as Tropical Passion, Moku Nani, and the Potted Parrot. Each is made of a unique but secret blend of dark rum, light rum, spiced rum, tropical juices, and of course "subtle flavorings."  But by the time you'd realize that the only real difference is the glass they come in, you're too probably drunk to notice--or care. 

Minus the palm fronds, the RailVolution conference is much the same.  

Remember the legislation that, in 1965, affirmed universal suffrage in all elections?  Yes, you do.  It was called the National Voting Rights Act.

Anyone who has picked up a greeting card, coffee mug, or calendar in the past 100 years or so can recognize the sentiments of any number of great American environmentalists: Whitman and his yawp, Thoreau and his deliberateness, Frost and his serene decisiveness. We know the exhortations of Carson, Leopold, Emerson, and Abbey. John Muir, John McPhee, and Barry Lopez are known to have taken a few strolls through the chestnuts. 

With due respect to Frederick Jackson Turner, the American frontier closes on Tuesday.  This time, for good.

I've always wanted, but never quite had the cred, to go to Burning Man. Instead, I went to this year's rendition of National Park(ing) Day in the hopes that it would provide a reasonable, if diminuative, substitute in temporary parks across the country. Creative minds can do a lot with 180 square feet, especially when there are straight-laced passers-by to shock and paradigms to subvert.

Despite the rising costs of belonging to the jet set, I took my share of flights for a few business trips and boondoggles this summer. Though most of my plane tickets were paid for, my transportation to and from my respective airports were not. Like any good urbanist, I approached each airport as a challenge to see how cheaply and quickly I could get from the airport to my in-town destination.

These were challenges that I -- or, rather, the cities -- failed more often than they passed.

For two years I walked to work. Before that, gas cost a penny and a few hummed bars of "Livin' La Vida Loca" and climate change meant turning up the A/C. In the mid-2000s my commute got longer and I decided to take the bus. But not until this month did a bus pass ever make its way into my wallet.

So far, I've found that it confers a remarkable sort of freedom. It's not just the freedom not to pay. It's the freedom to go wherever you want without even having to think. The momentary caculus of whether it's worth the $1.50 to go across town to pick up a baguette or see The Love Guru does not even have to cross your mind. Transfers, exact change, and all the rest go by the wayside as well.

I once was consigned to a table full of business school students at a land-use conference at UCLA. Trying to be a good sport, I offered the only idea that I'd ever had about business: car insurance charged according to miles driven. I posited that since risk and mileage were more or less correlated, it only made sense that people who drove more and incurred more risk should pay more.

My tablemates stared back at me as if I had just issued a rousing recitation of Das Kapital.

Now that the weather in Los Angeles has gone from pleasant to perfect with the subtle advent of spring, I've been spending more time risking my life atop my bicycle as I wend my way to meetings and errands. As a faithful urbanist I have little trouble convincing myself of cycling's merits, which, as former California State Health Officer Dr. Richard Jackson likes to say, can "improve your life span, lower your blood pressure, make you better looking, improve your sex life, and save you money." Sounds good to me.

I've always hated songs about cities, particularly mawkish anthems like "New York, New York," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and the ghastly "I Love L.A." Lyricists seem to dream them up when there's nothing else to sing about. Indeed, cities are the setting for life, not the object of it. Singing about them is like performing a play about a theater.

MINNEAPOLIS--If not for the Walker Art Center I would have scant reason to spend extra time in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not lacking for charm or culture, but it certainly falls in that middle range of American cities, somewhere between New York and nondescript, which is to say that it is not a destination in and of itself, yet it offers reasons to extend a stay for those who find themselves so far north for other reasons.

Yes, yes. We all want to save the children. They are our most precious resource and hold the key to our future. Let them lead the way, and please, lord, don't let them get run over by a train.

Fortunately, most American kids face no such danger because they are held safe in far-flung suburbs where conformity and the cocoon of the strip mall tend to their well-being. They are growing up strong and worldly behind gates and in perfect communities far from the strife of the city, where art, culture, diversity, adventure, and freedom might stimulate them just a little too much.