The New Urbanists' Losing Battle For Biloxi
The New York Times Magazine critiques the efforts of New Urbanists to redesign Biloxi, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, referring to the group as "faintly cultish".
In the wake of Katrina, Mississippi "Gov. Haley Barbour put together a commission to jump-start the rebuilding and asked Jim Barksdale to be its chairman. Barksdale is an Ole Miss graduate who went on to become C.E.O. of Netscape..."
"One of Barksdale's first advisers was Leland Speed, a dapper man with a vivid manner, who had retired from the real-estate investment funds he managed and had gone to work for the Mississippi Development Authority. 'They want to tell me how it's going to be,' he said by way of explaining how the M.D.A. interacts with local governments. 'I say: "I got filthy rich in the real-estate business. Now you're going to tell me something about it?" And then they tend to listen to me.' Barksdale listened, too, and Speed persuaded him to consider a new way of thinking about cities and how they function, a movement in zoning and planning that emerged about 25 years ago and goes by a handful of informal names -- 'smart growth,' 'sustainable development,' 'form-based code' -- and, more formally, by one: New Urbanism."
"When [the initial Biloxi charrette] was done, the plan for Biloxi showed a picturesque little city, with graceful boulevards and pretty streets flanked by neat houses and stately mansions and even the casinos concealed in stylish towers...It looked like a quintessential sleepy Southern city, or perhaps a parody of one."
"Playing posthurricane politics in Biloxi is like trying to sword-fight on a rolling log, and as the months wore on, almost everyone found something to object to in the Congress for the New Urbanism's plan."
"The New Urbanists like to point to their inclusiveness and respect for regional traditions. Liz Moule told me several times that they had gone out of their way to bring local people into the forum. But judging from the list of invitees, that meant 'local designers.' Movement throughout Biloxi was significantly limited that week, with National Guardsmen stationed along the highway leading up to the Isle of Capri. Any unaffiliated citizen who wanted to stop by would have been turned away, and in any case, a lot of the evacuees hadn't come back to town yet."
"New Urbanism is like Whole Foods: it's meant to be good for you, but it's expensive, at least on the front end, and it comes with a set of cultural connotations that generally play best among the prosperous and the self-consciously progressive."
"Moreover, the movement can come across as faintly cultish, with converts rather than mere adherents, proselytizers instead of spokesmen and an air of Manichaeism that can seem both self-aggrandizing and somewhat paranoid. Leland Speed, who is neither, nevertheless put it plainly: 'I have drunk the Kool-Aid,' he said cheerfully."
"One designer who was involved in the Renewal Forum took up the Kool-Aid metaphor where Leland Speed had left it. 'There will be some people who drink the whole glass,' he said, 'and some who just take a sip. Biloxi sipped it and spit it back out again.'"
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Pop Journalism At Its Worst
This article about New Urbanism in Biloxi is by Jim Lewis, identified as a novelist whose last article for the NY Times Magazine was about soldiers on R&R in Qatar. The writer obviously knows little and cares less about urban design: he sees it as an opportunity to make clever observations about the personalities involved (the same thing that I am sure he does when he writes about soldiers in Qatar or about anything else).
He makes two substantive criticisms of the New Urbanists, both of which are unfounded.
First, he says that Duany's proposes building affordable housing at $140,000 a home, which cannot be afforded by people earning near the minimum wage. He ignores Marianne Cusato's "Katrina Cottage," a mobile home that looks like a traditional cottage and that costs less than the permanent houses that Duany is talking about. Even more blatantly, he ignores the fact that new construction is expensive: before the hurricane, people earning minimum wage could live in older houses, but now that those older houses were destroyed, nothing short of a miracle could build new permanent houses affordable (without subsidy) to people earning minimum wage.
Second, he says that Vietnamese immigrants do not want to live in walkable neighborhoods, because they came to the United States to be able to drive. Of course, he is just getting their gut reaction to the phrase "walkable neighborhood," and he ignores the fact that the New Urbanist neighborhoods give people the option of walking but do not force anyone to walk rather than driving. He also ignores the environmental issues involved in building walkable or auto-dependent neighborhoods.
In both these cases, he describes the people involved and presents their reactions to the New Urbanist plan without bothering to think about their reactions. This is typical of his focus on personalities rather than issues, which goes the furthest in his descriptions of Leland Speed: the fact that one colorful Mississippi character says he had drunk the Kool-Aid obviously doesn't mean that New Urbanism is cultish, as Lewis seems to think.
There are obviously important issues involved in the redesign of Mississippi and Lousiana after Katrina. Many people have said that this is could be the tipping point that moves American towards building neighborhoods that are more livable and more sustainable environmentally. Katrina was so devastating because of global warming, and we are talking about designing neighborhoods that will help slow global warming.
It is a shame that the national discussion of these issues is polluted by this sort of pop-journalism -- which doesn't care about the issues and just sees them as an occasion for making clever comments about the foibles of the personalities that are involved. The easiest way to be clever is by taking cheap shots at the New Urbanists, and that is the road that Jim Lewis takes.
Charles Siegel
Responding to some New Urbanist "Pop-Commentary"
After reading this article and then reading Mr. Siegel’s comments, I am compelled to comment myself. I agree with the points made in the earlier response by breton, but would like to add a few comments of my own:
1) Elitism of New Urbanism - Dismissing the Uninformed
Mr. Siegel begins his comments with an attack on this particular journalist’s qualifications to even comment on New Urbanism – calling him a known “novelist” (gasp!) – and concluding that the author “knows little and cares less about urban design.” Clearly an attempt to discredit the messenger – rather than the message!
This attack demonstrates why the New Urbanism movement continues to be perceived as elitist – an issue that is handled very fairly, I believe, in the article. By dismissing the opinions of “uninformed people,” professionals, such as planners, architects and other New Urbanists, risk ignoring the ultimate consumers of their efforts – that great mass of people who live in urban regions!
Those who wish to further the New Urbanism movement need to not only better inform people about their NU design principles, they also need to figure out a way to LISTEN TO – and then incorporate some of the “real world” feedback that is being offered by regular people. “Submersible homes?” Please tell me that was some kind of an inside joke … PLEASE?!
2) “…he ignores the fact that new construction is expensive”
WHAT? Whether or not Mr. Duany’s $140,000 affordable home estimate is accurate, and whether or not there exists a less expensive “Katrina Cottager,” the fact remains that the homes of many people have been destroyed, there is now a plan to “rebuild” – and it is likely that the rebuilding will leave many former residents (owners and renters alike) priced out of the new towns.
Far from ignoring this fact, I believe the NY Times article makes it clear that almost everybody involved recognizes this – from the poorer residents at the barber shop to the owners of the casinos. The only people with a blind spot to the issue appear to be the New Urbanists who parachuted into the region – seeing it as an opportune laboratory in which to test their theories about “good urban design.”
3) Governement responsibility – and responses
It appears that FEMA just may establish maps and building requirements for this region that will make it economically unfeasible for many to rebuild (unless, of course, you have a steady stream of gambling revenues!). But, the debate about rebuilding in natural disaster-risk areas will continue nationwide – how much are we willing to subsidize coastal development? … or development along fault lines? How much of this development would occur if we assumed that there would be NO national rebuilding assistance in the case of natural disasters?
And, let’s not forget a claim that was re-emphasized by Jane Jacobs in her book “Dark Age Ahead” – (paraphrasing) governments that serve the people the best are those that are closer to the people. The volunteer efforts coordinated by a local councilman seem to be an excellent example of this – they look to be providing the most significant, immediate and direct benefits to residents who want to rebuild. However, the author of the piece makes sure to point out that there is one thing - another hurricane impact - that will likely determine whether his effort proves to be "a triumph of grass-roots urbanism" or "negligence or worse."
Michael Casey
Rubbish
I read the article you're talkng about. Did you?
(1) According to the piece, the $140,000 figure came from Duany himself, who could certainly have brought up the Katrina Cottage if he wanted to, but didn't, I would guess, because it, too, doesn't meet FEMA guidelines. It's not as if the writer made up the figure: Duany is presumably a reliable source, and if $140,000 is what he said, then that's the right figure to report. Moreover, the writer did indeed point out, and very prominently, that new construction is inevitably going to be more expensive than moving back into the older homes: did you miss that part in your haste to find something to mewl about?
(2) The Vietnamese reluctance over the idea of a walkable city came from a spokewoman for the Vietnamese community. Again -- if you know anything about how journalism should work -- she is a perfectly good source of information. In any case, it would hardly be respectable journalism if the writer speculated about what they might want, without consulting any of them, and taking their thoughts into account (indeed, this is the presumably the mistake that the New Urbanists made in the first place: not consulting members of the community upon whom they were trying to impose a plan).
(3) The Leland Speed quote, if you read the paragraph around it, was not meant to be proof of the cultishness of New Urbanism, but only an example of it. My guess is that he had other examples, but that's the one he chose to use. Besides, he sounded rather affectionate towards Speed.
(4) Issues and personalities are hardly inseperable, since positions on issues come from, well, people. If New Urbanism has a reputation for being haughty and overbearing, and the personalities involved are indeed haughty and overbearing, that's a perfectly sound connection to make. Besides, you get a little personal here yourself, with your claims about the writer's supposed lack of knowledge about urbanism (Do you have the data to back that up? No? Did you look at the other things he's written to reinforce your own cheap, personal shot? Did you talk to him? No? That's why you don't write for the Times...).
(5) On the whole, your little plaintive cry here seems to be indicative of exactly what the author of the article was trying to get at: New Urbanism's utter inability to grasp the fact that not everyone wants to live that way; their bungled, clumsy job in Biloxi; their infantile reliance on absurd excuses, blame-shifting, and whining; and their refusal to even consider the possibility that maybe they went about it the wrong way.
pop journalism
Excellent comment Charles.
Best,
D