atlantalarry

The various "100 best things" lists

Over the past week or so there has been an increase in the facebook apps  of the form "100 things to do, eat, visit, etc."  I don't have any objections to them, and in fact they're sort of fun to peruse.  At the same time the subjectivity involved in choosing the most notable 100 of anything lends a sort of pointlessness to the lists.

The lastest to enter my attention span is a "places to visit" sort of list.  The Sears Tower, Grand Canyon, and Gateway arch all made the cut, but Savannah's Mercer house, White Sands desert, and the Brooklyn Bridge didn't.  I suspect the Big Chicken wasn't even considered, and it's at least as artistically significant as the Gateway Arch.

I'm aware that ranking things is a very human characteristic, but I first became skeptical of "100 things" lists when I began mulling over the 100 greatest English language novels, and 100 greatest operas lists.

James Joyce's Ulysses was at the top of the novels lists.  Really?  Better than Confederacy of Dunces, or Catch 22?  The relative merits of a novel depends on one's purpose in reading it, and I don't doubt Joyce's brilliance, but I've made repeated unsuccessful attempts to read Ulysses.  I've started it so many times that I've practically memorized the scene with Steven Dedalus and Buck Mulligan in the Tower.  Then I bog down.  Perhaps I have a lowbrow streak, but I've read the latter two books repeatedly.  I don't think it's American chauvanism on my part either.  I think Terry Pratchett is one of the finest living English language writers, and if memory serves me correctly none of his books made the "100 greatest ..." list.

As for the opera list, Wagner's Ring Cycle was at the top of the most widely circulated list.  As good as it is, it's a ponderous, overly long, somewhat jingoistic opera, guaranteed to bring about a terrible case of sore buttocks, even with frequent intermissions.  There are many brilliant and accessible operas to choose from.  The Barber of Seville, Il Trovatore, and any of Gilbert and Sullivan's works make arguably much better connection with audiences than the 15 hours of the Ring Cycle.

These lists may be worthwhile to expose a person to places, foods, novels, operas, symphonies, or other types  of thing which that person might not otherwise encounter, or to test one's exposure to a wide range of experiences.  But you shouldn't stress out too much if you've never eaten haggis, or been to the Gateway arch, or read Ulysses, or suffered through a live performance of the Ring Cycle.  Instead figure out what you really find fulfilling, and make your own list.

Gotcha Capitalism

While my wife was dying I was awash in a mysterious world of cost-shifts, hidden fees, charges which were so vaguely specified that determining what had been done in exchange for any given charge was impossible without spending hours on the phone and in billing offices for each of the hundreds of transactions.  Americans expect that of our medical system, so it didn't surprise me.

But after my wife had passed away, and I had a bit of time to reflect, I began wondering what other aspects of my life were filled with unexamined charges.  While I'm a believer in personal responsibility, "caveat emptor"  is not an acceptable slogan when the economic waters are filled with predators.

In mid-January, on NPR's Morning Edition I heard an interview with Bob Sullivan, who'd released a new book entitled Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day-and What You Can Do About It.  The book was about the hundreds of hidden fees and small-print generated rip-offs which have become an astonishingly large part of the US economy.  It's an excellent small reference work not only on the manner in which the public is being systematically victimized, but how to resist being the victim.

The book focuses on a number of commonly used services and products, including credit cards, banks, 401-ks and other retirement vehicles, mortgages and rentals, cell phones, home phones, pay TV, internet access, travel, groceries, gift cards, rebates, student loans, shipping charges, health clubs, and a number of other miscellaneous categories.

Not only does Sullivan describe the charges, but there is a Toolkit section which outlines strategies for fighting the charges, with sample complaint letters, and a description of negotiation tactics and legal options.

This book is a very good resource for anyone who is protective of their money.

Fogelson's Downtown

There are perhaps a few dozen books which I frequently cite when I'm involved in discussions of subjects I find interesting. Of that few dozen I consider maybe a dozen books essential reading within their scope of interest.

When considering the development of the American Downtown, its rise, decline, and future prospects, I can't think of a more essential resource than Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950 by Robert M. Fogelson.

One thing which makes this book essential to activists who are attempting to influence the vitality and form of our cities is the extent to which it serves as a counterbalance to wishful thinking and nostalgia. And the primary means by which it accomplishes this is by maintaining its national scope through local examples as it focuses on issue after issue. It wasn't necessarily poor individual policy decisions by Detroit, or Philadelphia, or St. Louis (or Atlanta, Tampa or LA for that matter) which led to the declines. The declines were part of a powerful national tendency, which affected all cities across the country, even those few which came out of the post WWII period with reasonably functional cores. Fogelson's narrative is presented in a relentless fashion, as those policies intended to save downtown often sped up the decline, and those policies which might have at least stemmed the tide failed to be implemented.

The specific issues taken up in the book include the dispersal of residences from the core, the effort to build subways in various cities across the country, the beginning of decentralization of business, the efforts to impose height limits on buildings, the battles over onstreet parking (and the rise of the parking meter), attempts to retrofit downtown with limited access highways in order to make it easier to drive downtown(and how that actually backfired from the vantage point of many of its most vigorous supporters), the formation of the Urban Land Institute, the impact of the tenement reform movement, and the beginnings of the urban renewal programs and federally funded public housing.

I've actually read this book cover to cover more than once, in addition to using it as a reference work, and each time I read it I want to cry. And in some ways that is the value of Fogelsons' work. Since I am a person with a lifelong love of dense, rich, teeming urban life, with it's diversity of experiences and of cultures, with thousands of amenities accessable with a walk or a bus or train ride, I view it as absolutely essential that urbanists in general and New Urbanists in particular have an accurate understanding of the real manner in which the core of our great cities developed and declined. If we don't we are quite likely to produce mirror images of the mistakes of the past, rather than making sure that the cores of our cities are vital and durable for the centuries to come.

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town on Jane Jacobs

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

A friend in the neighborhood, Reid Davis, pointed this New Yorker article on Jane Jacobs's new book out to me.

Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion

Larry Keating's book Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion (Comparative American Cities) is one of a handful of books which belong on the shelf of anyone trying to make sense of the evolution of Atlanta since World War II. Keating was an Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, and has been one of the most vocal and articulate critics of the business dominated coalition which set the approach for Atlanta's shape over the past few decades.

Keating describes the coalition between the downtown white business elite and the rising middle class African-American political leadership, and the effects that the priorities of that coalition had on the current shape of Atlanta.

I believe the most valuable part of Keating's work is his narrative which covers both the high profile projects which were implemented by the coalition in an attempt to maintain the economic dominance of downtown in the decades following the Second World War, and lesser known policies such as the changes in
the city ordinance to ban back alley dwellings which had the effect of removing black residents from primarily white northside neighborhoods.

In terms of the big projects he covers the the construction of the expressway system, the urban renewal era, the building of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Civic Center, the World Congress Center, Underground Atlanta, the destruction and redevelopment of Techwood/Clark Howell Homes and the Olympics and its associated redevelopment components.

He covers these projects from the point of view of a person critical of the effects of these projects on the poor, mostly African-American population immediately adjacent to downtown.

In addition he describes more gradual and low profile events, such as the removal of small black settlements from the more heavily white northside neighborhoods. These include the expansions of Candler Park and what later became Frankie Allen Park in Buckhead.

I am personally much more sympathetic than Dr. Keating with many of the projects of which he offers criticism, particularly as they relate to attempts to attract middle and upper class residents to the city's center. But his book offers insights into the resistance of a number of neighborhoods to these projects,
and gives informative outlines of the various groups who sought to affect the outcome of the projects.

I found his descriptions of why the MARTA routes and expressway paths are in their current form particularly interesting.

On balance, if you want a book which will fill in many of the gaps in the more official histories of the development of facilities and institutions near downtown Atlanta, Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion (Comparative American Cities) is a very good resource.

Home Comforts: a book recommendation

For the past two days I've been working on undoing the damage to the demeanor of my house brought on by my wife's hospital stay.

My own use of our house as a place to rapidly shower, fling clothing toward the nearest available surface, grab a change of clothes, and head back to the hospital did its share of the wreckage. Our two lonely and traumatized dogs were busily dragging and chewing anything at dog level not either out of their reach or firmly attached to something. The usual accumulating microscopic objects, both living and inorganic, seemed to somehow know we were gone, and worked overtime to establish their various territories. And did I mention dog hair?

When my mind developed enough clarity to realize I needed a plan, I went straight to the bookshelf for Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House.

Of the many "Howto" books I've purchased over the years, this one stands out as comprehensive, readable, and practical. When I search for a "howto" book in another category I find myself sighing and complaining that
I can't find anything comparable to the Mendelson book.

In one of the dust jacket testimonial blurbs on the book Witold Rybczynski wrote:

"Cheryl Mendelson knows the secret of transforming a house into a home. This extraordinary book is to be read for its wise counsel, its authoritative advice, and its illuminating insights into the management of the domestic realm. As if that were not enough, it is beautifully written"

I couldn't agree more.

Sinclair Lewis revisited

Sometime around the year 1966, like several generations of high school students before me, I was required to read Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt. Unlike many of the works I was required to read at that time, I did not consider Babbit to be a torturous reading experience (in contrast Silas Marner traumatized me. One day I will go back and reread it as an adult, and determine whether my aversion to the book was unfair).

For one thing parts of Sinclair Lewis's work struck me as very funny and entertaining. For another it dovetailed nicely with my budding bohemianism, and my criticism of Atlanta's business and political leadership of that time, many of whom struck me as carbon copies of George Babbit himself. Bear in mind that it was the 60s, and I wasn't the only adolescent being swept up in the social criticism of that generation. I was introduced to George Babbitt at a very receptive stage in my life.

Over the past ten years or so, I've developed an increasing suspicion that I might now be a bit more sympathetic to George Babbit and his boosteristic peers in the small cities and larger towns of the 1910s and 20s across the U.S. As my memory of the specifics of the book dwindled, my sympathies with the desire of the business and development community in these growing areas to build something dynamic and important began to grow.

Consequently I've taken on a project of reading some of the works of the social critics of that era, starting with Lewis's 1920 work Main Street. The reason I chose Main Street is that the subject matter is something near and dear to my New Urbanist heart. It concerns the attempt of a young reformer to transform a small but growing Midwestern agricultural town into a town that is a physically beautiful and culturally refined and uplifting place.

I'm going to post my impressions on this reading project here from time to time as it progresses.