Recently in Urban life Category

Aaron M. Renn at the indispensable New Geography site has a fascinating analysis of a curious aspect shared by progressive urban havens like Austin, Portland and suchlike: they have relatively few black people in them. Excerpt:

This raises troubling questions about these cities. Why is it that progressivism in smaller metros is so often associated with low numbers of African Americans? Can you have a progressive city properly so-called with only a disproportionate handful of African Americans in it? In addition, why has no one called these cities on it?

As the college educated flock to these progressive El Dorados, many factors are cited as reasons: transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes. But another way to look at it is simply as White Flight writ large. Why move to the suburbs of your stodgy Midwest city to escape African Americans and get criticized for it when you can move to Portland and actually be praised as progressive, urban and hip? Many of the policies of Portland are not that dissimilar from those of upscale suburbs in their effects. Urban growth boundaries and other mechanisms raise land prices and render housing less affordable exactly the same as large lot zoning and building codes that mandate brick and other expensive materials do. They both contribute to reducing housing affordability for historically disadvantaged communities. Just like the most exclusive suburbs.

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Imagine a large corporation with a workforce whose African American percentage far lagged its industry peers, sans any apparent concern, and without a credible action plan to remediate it. Would such a corporation be viewed as a progressive firm and employer? The answer is obvious. Yet the same situation in major cities yields a different answer. Curious.

In fact, lack of ethnic diversity may have much to do with what allows these places to be "progressive". It's easy to have Scandinavian policies if you have Scandinavian demographics.

Discuss.

UPDATE: Just to add my two cents, as I'm going to be busy today and unable to blog much till later, I don't care about white flight, or black flight, or brown flight. It doesn't surprise me that people want to live around people like them, whether in terms of race, class, educational level, whatever. I object only to any legal impediment to people being free to move and to live where they want to. I simply find it risible that progressives would criticize others for allegedly having bad racial motives for what they call "white flight" (though middle class people of all ethnicities do the same thing) when they themselves are doing the same thing.

Continuing on a theme this morning, San Francisco writer John King, reviewing a new book about design by Deyan Sudjic, explains why cities continue to have a hold on our imagination, despite the ease of working and living outside of the traditional urban core. Excerpt:

All this should signal a death knell to the traditional core. Instead - recession aside - marquee hubs such as San Francisco stand more desirable than ever. It's not that we need to be here. But the center serves as a stage set, the spotlit focus for people who use urbanity to define themselves and their tribe.

Cities aren't the focus of Sudjic's book, a well-tailored provocation that both explores why the best design work is timeless and decries how it can be debased for status or show. Thomas Chippendale and his 18th century furniture are explored as a precursor to Ikea - "a pioneer in brand creation" - and the ever-shinier line of Apple products is contrasted with the demise of the fountain pen as status symbol ("the basic concept has lost its relevance").

The underlying theme: the quest among designers and clients for "emotional resonance," the design of a watch or a laptop computer that connotes something beyond what it does: "to provide us with a reminder of the world beyond utility."

Which brings us back to downtown San Francisco, where so much of the terrain is fine-tuned to make you feel like something is happening - and that you belong in/to the scene.

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"In objects we value the 'authentic,' the hand-pressed. It's often the same thing with cities," Sudjic said in a telephone interview last week. "A (successful) city is about how it feels to be in a particular place, at a particular time."

I like that quote. I would suggest that the reason we love cities, and the reason that we respond emotionally to beauty, has something to do with why my two-year-old daughter spent four minutes watching the Queen of England's coronation, and was absolutely enchanted. There is something in our nature that craves elevation above utility.

(H/T: Wick Allison.)

1. In Germany, a whole town has gone largely car-free -- and people love it. Excerpt:

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban's families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. "When I had a car I was always tense. I'm much happier this way," said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called "smart planning."

There is nothing I miss more than life in Brooklyn than the fact it was centered around walking everywhere. Sheer delight.

2. In the middle of this economic crisis, the French are putting their money not into gold, but into cows. Excerpt:

For Pierre Marguerit, 60, cows make a safe, secure investment, allowing for long-term growth from a renewable resource. The cow contracts are hardly new, but go back to Richard the Lionheart; the French word for livestock, "cheptel," is the root for "capital."

These are not exactly cash cows. But investment in Mr. Marguerit's Holsteins will bring a 4 to 5 percent return a year after taxes, he said, based on "natural growth" -- the sale of their offspring. That compares to an interest rate now of 0.75 percent on the basic French bank account.

Last year, his business went up by 40 percent, and so far this year, it has "practically doubled ," said Mr. Marguerit, the managing director of Élevage et Patrimoine, a cattle investment firm in this part of eastern France, near the Alps, and president of Gestel, which works with farmers and investors.

"People have saved money and don't want to waste it," he said. "Stocks have fallen a lot, and people see it. We need somewhere to put our money for a long-term investment, something more stable."

..."At this difficult time, it's a much better investment than real estate and much more tangible than the stock market," Mr. Marguerit said. He then proceeded to praise the new interest "in natural, organic and lasting things" among the French, who have always romanticized the countryside and imagined themselves shrewd peasants at heart. "This is part of the patrimony," he said.

In my Sunday column, I wrote about a mean dog home invasion on my block, and criticized the leadership class of Dallas for its obsession with building signature starchitect projects (e.g., bridges designed by Santiago Calatrava), while neglecting the plain-Jane quality of life issues that make a city truly livable. Excerpt:

What does it say about Dallas that its leadership class gets giddy over grandiose projects, but - [my council member Angela] Hunt being an honorable exception - can't be bothered to tackle the chronic dog problem? Council members will talk your ear off about how Dallas needs to be a "world-class" city, as if gee-whiz designer erections compensate for the embarrassing fact that people in parts of town can't go outside for fear of a dog attacking them.

Maybe if somebody would propose commissioning a Calatrava dog pound, city government might start to care.

"I think one of the big reasons cities fail is that they don't deal with the basics," urbanist Joel Kotkin has said. Well, you don't get more basic than keeping dogs from roaming wild in the streets. In that regard, Dallas is a world-class city, all right - a Third World-class city.

Boring, middle-class families with boring, middle-class expectations of safety, order and governmental competence form the backbone of successful cities. Animal control and code enforcement are not sexy. No developers, businessmen or politicians stand to profit directly from them. But an inferior quality of life makes middle-class families leave for the suburbs, no matter how many starchitectural buildings, high-profile developments and brochure-friendly projects the city embraces. The time and money anxious Dallas elites spend trying to keep up with New York and Chicago would be better spent trying to stay on par with Frisco and McKinney. [Note: Two booming Dallas suburbs.]

"Dallas has an opportunity to be a great city to live in if we stop focusing on big, shiny, expensive things and concentrate instead on the basics," Hunt tells me, referring in part to the absurd convention-center hotel project.

She's right. Nothing wrong with wanting to make Dallas a nice place to visit, but it's more important to make it a nice place to live.